A Festival Of Harvest Poem by Ramesh T A

Festivals abound in India, the land of beauty and greatness;
One such festival is the festival of harvest.
This most celebrated festival is the farmer’s festival too;
War or peace the farmers plough and produce
Food to feed the mass of the whole world.
High or low everyone salutes and goes after the plough man,
Who ploughs and produces food produces to please all the people.
But who bothers about the peasants who toil all day under the hot sun
Braving the monotony of the routine
along with his cattle between the sky and the earth?
An uncared for creature though broad as the sky and patient as the earth he is
To bear all the insults wisely holding the responsibility to feed the whole world!
The festival of harvest, the only time he cherishes in all the seasons of the year;
A successful harvest done, he prays to the Rain, Sun and the Cow that gives milk.
Yes! Rain, Sun and Milk are very vital for men on the earth
To live, love and make life sustainable against all adversities!
Ever rich green everyone wants to see the field;
But it’s a feat only the farmers furnish so to the flora forever
And grow the ripe gold corns on the field ready to cut at the harvest hour
Only to sow new seeds and cultivate new plants to cut rich crops at the next harvest.
So goes the work of the farmer on the field forever and ever.
For long born as bonded labourers great souls toiled unseen
and died unknown;
The old system extracted, exploited and exhausted them beyond repair.
So the new generation migrated in masses to metropolitan cities to become moderners
And science and technology entered villages changing the nature of agriculture altogether.
Now the nation’s economy suffers due to their mass exodus to the towns
And many agro-industries are needed to change this trend in the villages.
The towns’ facilities have to be introduced in the villages too;
And above all population growth has to be checked
by supportive material growths also.
Water the vital need of the villages has to be diverted from the river going waste;
Science and technology have to be used here more than to wars
and sending rockets to the seas!
Village agriculture, the symbol of civilisation should not turn into
a place of jungle for savage harvests;
The peaceful village life, the basis of our culture should not be forgotten forever,
If we want to live as human beings in the world forever and ever.
So, Rain, Sun and Milk, the sustaining power of the people
have to be celebrated in every harvest,
Whatever be our developments and however high or low every one lives in the world.