I Am Calling From Beneath The Debris Poem by Bashyam Narayanan

I am calling from beneath the debris
Of the eleven storied building that collapsed
On a raining Saturday evening

I know you cannot hear me
But still try to inform you how it all happened
That fateful day

Me, my wife and our only baby boy
Were there at the ground floor
Waiting for the weekly-wage distributor
To arrive
With a plan to buy a new dress for the kid
Marking his sixth months completion on Sunday, the next day

I was thinking it may not be possible that day
As the sky was unusually dark
With rain bearing thick clouds all around
Making that late afternoon look like dusk

There was a sudden excitement
As the man of money distribution
Was sighted entering the other corner of the building

He came rushing in as it started raining
There was lightning and loud thunder

Some of us had collected their wages
And standing in pockets counting the currencies received
Some managed to rush out in the rain
To a nearby tea stall
For a cup of tea and snacks

I was still in the queue waiting for my turn
I was in no hurry
As it looked that it would be raining for long
And we did not mind standing protected
Under this tall shelter

I was inching towards the table
Over which the wages got distributed

It was raining heavily outside
With lightning and thunder
There was a blinding lightning with an attendant
Very loud thunder

What all followed was something terrifc
It all started coming down
And with a big thug
Every piece of the under-construction building
Began to fall as powdered concrete

And even before I could make out
I saw all of us standing there
Going down in a steady jerk
And getting buried under the debris

I was painfully injured
In all my body parts
And crying for help too became difficult
As voicing worsened the pain

I felt locked as I was unable to move any of my limbs
I had no clue of what happened to my wife and son
The killing pain made focus on me more
And I came to know I would not be able to help any one

I did not know for how long I was suffering
Suddenly I felt no pain
May be I am dead by then
I was shouting at the peak of my voice
But I saw no response to my cries

I was thinking about the wonderful time
I spent when I was a boy
We used to build our house
My dad would bring mud from a select pit
And my mom, my sister and me together
Raised mud walls
And gave a shape for a thatched hut

With no cement, no steel, no concrete
Such hand-made huts stood for decades
With a maintenance here and there
We had no supervisor
We never went for obtaining license
No heavy engineering machine
No huge force

My dad was advising me against taking up this job
In this big construction company

Hoping to come up again on to the surface
I am calling from beneath the debris