
Self-dependent!!
Self-dependent we were before someone said to be,
Even before this pandemic, during the day-to-day fear of rioting and lynching.
Yes, even before the task of proving citizenship and nationality,
Self-dependent we were before the slogans like ‘everyone’s development, everyone’s company’.
Government changes – politics revenges, but we remain the same – self-dependent.
Economy grows – billionaires in the Forbes, but we remain the same – self-dependent.
Indexes rise up –speeches flare up, but we remain the same – self-dependent.
Bloody self-dependent we were while dying in famines, riots and massacres in British Raj,
And while living in the partitions, communal carnages, emergencies, gas-tragedies, dam-tragedies so far.
We have borne the brunt of every calamity, how could we escape then this disaster.
We will bear this too, imprinting our blood-stained footmarks on the sun-blazed roads,
Emitting our starving souls in stuffed compartments of misguided and mismanaged trains,
Crying for a glass of water and a piece of bread –
Our children, women and elders slept for ever feeling too ashamed to beg.
We don’t mourn, too busy we’re to carry the corpses
And some stubborn life still left with us inevitably,
And we assure you, we’ll remain self-dependent…
~Ravi
P. S. Photo is taken from the Internet owing full credit to the original creator/owner.
The above poem is on the plight of the migrant laborers who used to work in the Indian cities earlier, but due the Pandemic hit by the Covid-19, they had to leave their job-places and to move toward their homes on foot, on buses, on lorries on trains and on whatever conveyance they got on the way. Read this poem, and if you like, do share it. Thank you so much!
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Ravi is basically a Teacher and Reader. He loves to read interesting and thought-provoking books. On an average, he reads 80 to 90 books per year. He is much into realistic, political, historical and philosophical works, but occasionally he likes to read Poems, Short-stories, Fantasy and Romance. His other hobbies are Singing, Photography, Movies, and Travelling. Ravi started his writing by writing poems and book-reviews and he has written more than one hundred fifty poems in English and more than three hundred book reviews; some of his poems have been published in various online journals like : Indian Periodical, Mad Swirl, Borderless; in Print, his poems have been published in Oxigle Media Publications’ anthology “Whisper of Hearts” and Evincepub Publications’ anthology “Rubaroo”. One of his Short-stories has been published in TheUNIverse Journal and one of his articles has been published in Indian Periodical. Ravi has also published his collection of Hindi Poems “Vo Baat Un Dino Ki Thi” on Amazon Kindle.
Ravi is planning to publish his collection of short-stories and poems in near future, and working on his first novel right now.