Where Have You Gone, My Kin? Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

Where have gone these Asian tigers and Anopheles?
As the westerly winds blocked the breeze from the sea,
Chennai is sweltering at 43 degree celcius.
A thousand have fallen to sunstroke in the nearby State.
But where they are now, is a mystery?
They must have air-dashed to Swiss bank
to deposit their hard earned money; you may call it “ bribe”.
They could have visited China and Pakistan in stealth
to query why don’t they support India, an Asian Nation,
for annihilating the terrorists in Kashmir,
as they lent support to Sri Lanka to wipe out
Tamil Freedom Tigers who were fighting for freedom?

They throve well in Chennai as a community
with more than 3000 species loving each other
and casting bogus votes during the polls.
Distilling and selling arrack was their wonted trade.
They identify their kin by the length of proboscis
as people do by a beard or sword,
a cross-belt or a cross round the neck,
a big moustache or a tuft of hair,
a ring around the wrist or by a dialect spoken.
They have built castles as Dengue, Flariasis and Malaria
and sworn to mosquitovise the whole earth.
Some enter the jungles and hills
for suckling the tribes with the love of their faith.
Some of them are taught Kungfoo and Karate,
the martial arts to smash the opponents with guts.
As you, the biting heroes are away,
the flies here paly by picking pockets, snatching chains,
breaking into houses at night, carrying hawala money
or smuggling drugs by superfast trains.
You have a chip of your own with secret codes
and so your whereabouts are not known.

At times, you export female children to gulf for pelf
and kidnap small boys, to tie them around the shank of camels,
running wild in deserts. Without you I feel foreign here,
as you would hit at my face when I ride a bike
and keep me awake through 300 nights in a year
by hovering over me and trespassing into my nostrils.
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Note: Asian Tigers l; and Anopheles are kinds of mosquitoes.