A New World Is In The Coming Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

Pre-noon, sun preparing to turn harsh
Large shade of a gulmohar tree
A four or so year old boy
Sitting on a small sand heap
Near a construction site
With a blue jeans
Here-and-there torn
White fibres running across the opening
And an odd size dark red colour shirt
His parents working there nearby
Father a mason
Ever busy with mixing cement and sand
And also supervising the work
Of some construction labourers
His mother carrying a head load of bricks
At regular intervals
Once a while she comes near him
And sees from a distance making sure
He is safe and behaving
The boy minds not things around
The horn of a passing car gets unnoticed by him
He knows the car will pass without hurting him
A barking dog cannot threaten him
Nor a cow going very close to him
He is unmoved by any such
Normally-termed unsafe situations
He poses to be smart
As he probably is exposed to these
For more than two years now
He is happy throwing handful of sands around
He makes a small ball of sand
And enjoys the sight of its breaking
At the pressure of his tender fingers
Suddenly he thinks of a small hill
And starts pushing sands
Towards a centre point
So that the collection heaps up to hill
He has almost done it
His dad appears yelling at him
Move away, I need this sand
I am to prepare a fresh mix
Lifts his son single handedly
Practically throwing his son onto the road
The child cries
He can stand hunger,
He can stand un-attending,
He can stand thirst,
He can stand beating,
But not this insult of
Denying him the only play thing, the sand
He started crying pitifully
Mother after unloading her head load of bricks
Comes rushing to her crying son and says
Stop crying, do not worry
A new lorry load of sand will soon come
You can stay atop on a big heap of sand
And play for long
The boy, our hero, understands
Stops crying at once, as he knows
A new world is in the coming