Keeping Count
Day 1
I saw ma stressed
I’ll lose my job if I don’t go she said
After all, the ministers are responsible for the bread
That she earns, our only one
10, 9, 8
The counting has to be done
Day 4
Ma came home, looking a little pale
She coughed and burnt with fever
We advised a week’s rest to her
But they said duty was important
So next day she again reported
To the polling booth at once
7, 6, 5
The counting has to be done
Day 9
Ma was dying
Death meant no one would feed me roti or braid my hair
Or tell me a story before the close of a day
And hug me and say it’ll all be okay
My last memory of her
Lying alone in a hospital bed
With tubes growing out of her from all directions
3…2…1
The number of breaths
Left in her chest
The counting must be done
Of the piling bills and medicines
That couldn’t save the dead
Or the tokens we need to book a seat
To cremate our loved one
The counting must be done
Of the number of kids robbed off their parents
Or the long queues outside hospitals and burial grounds alike
Or the rivers piling up corpses like silt on its banks
Tell the officials their records need correction
Tell them, the counting must be done
❈ ❈
Lost Home
One day it appeared as though the corals had never been
It had all turned to concrete
Lifeless, stripped off their colours
Thirty six reefs altogether, barren and bleached
The sea died leaving behind carcasses of a happier time
Hues of blue under a pallor of ashen grey
The papers showed heat as the underlying cause
I reckon it was grief, for it missed the corals so
The soil sobbed and mourned, as the cruel concrete vehemently erased every trace of it
And grazed the coconut trees too, in a fit of rage
So many coconuts, lying abandoned
For who’d keep them now
So they walked around
But no matter where they’d go, their home the archipelago was nowhere to be found
(Sayani Rakshit is studying for a Master’s degree in Mass Communication at Jamia Milia Islamia University, New Delhi. Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum.)
