An Indian Hamlet Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

An Indian hamlet
of a bunch of houses
Without the light,
Without the things
Essential.

The mud-built houses
With the roofs of straw,
The whole going to sleep
So early
At night.

We the Indians could
The rock-built temples,
But never could we
Houses for us,
Just for to house in
Gods and goddesses.

Under the tree, runs it
The primary school,
Under the orchard plot,
The village boys and girls
Going to school
Without breakfast.

The office-time food
And the breakfast
Are the things of modernity
Otherwise they have been stale food
For so long
And that too if possible.

The villagers, agriculturists,
High and low,
All poor comparatively,
Fatalistic and superstitious,
Going by karma-dharma
Blindly, not reasonably.

Half-fed and half-clothed,
They sleeping on the date-leaf mats
During the summertime
And during the winter
On straw beds
Or on the rope sling cots.

To have a cup of tea not easy
Which learnt we from
The British,
Actually sherbat,
Jaggery-mixed water we used to take.