Suicide statistics are climbing up all over the country. While we are aware of the tragic incidents in metros, which highlight each and every incident, the happenings in the heartlands of the country are unfortunately off the radar. It behooves of a person of the caliber of Sainath to bring them to our attention.
Appended below are the poems of one of the cotton farmers who had to end his life because of the stony silence of the state machinery...and perhaps all of us..
POVERTY KILLS!
Mute calves from Warhad are we
watching the plunder of mothers milk
Drenching earth drop by drop
with our sweat
yielding pearls
yet our babies in hunger fret!
Cotton crop watered by out sweat
knotting 17 tears on our clothes
We farm with our sweat
on the pyre our bodies will only half burn
no money to buy the wood!
Reins of our lives always in the hands of others
While grinding flour
the floors will stain with out blood!
-- Late Shri Krishna Kalamb, farmer poet
HUNGRY BONY BOY
Hungry bony boy
begs his mama for food.
Mama, teary eyed
points to the sun glowing red
Then, give me that bread now
I havent eaten since night
stomach is growling
Let this hot bread cool down son
So far, yet so scorching
it may blister your mouth!
The hot sun journey
and dipped behind the mountain
And waiting for his bread,
bony boy went to sleep hungry again!
-- Late Shri Krishna Kalamb, farmer poet
POEM BY A LATE FARMER POET
Different I am
so unusual my life
my death too, will surprise you
like untimely rain.
Fond of poetry
I exist like the cotton crop
its root sweet
alike the hard stem of sugarcane
Of my death, they will say
how it hangs
like decorations on door frames
-- Late Shri Krishna Kalamb, farmer poet
Appended below are the poems of one of the cotton farmers who had to end his life because of the stony silence of the state machinery...and perhaps all of us..
POVERTY KILLS!
Mute calves from Warhad are we
watching the plunder of mothers milk
Drenching earth drop by drop
with our sweat
yielding pearls
yet our babies in hunger fret!
Cotton crop watered by out sweat
knotting 17 tears on our clothes
We farm with our sweat
on the pyre our bodies will only half burn
no money to buy the wood!
Reins of our lives always in the hands of others
While grinding flour
the floors will stain with out blood!
-- Late Shri Krishna Kalamb, farmer poet
HUNGRY BONY BOY
Hungry bony boy
begs his mama for food.
Mama, teary eyed
points to the sun glowing red
Then, give me that bread now
I havent eaten since night
stomach is growling
Let this hot bread cool down son
So far, yet so scorching
it may blister your mouth!
The hot sun journey
and dipped behind the mountain
And waiting for his bread,
bony boy went to sleep hungry again!
-- Late Shri Krishna Kalamb, farmer poet
POEM BY A LATE FARMER POET
Different I am
so unusual my life
my death too, will surprise you
like untimely rain.
Fond of poetry
I exist like the cotton crop
its root sweet
alike the hard stem of sugarcane
Of my death, they will say
how it hangs
like decorations on door frames
-- Late Shri Krishna Kalamb, farmer poet
RSS Feed