Lockdown Perspectives

Sourced from Twitter

Lockdown has lifted centuries of restrictions,

As the inhabitants claim their lands,

Someone had got their world to shrink,

Exploiting, causing many to extinct!

The exploiter multiplied like a virus,

Mutating at the cost of symbiotic interactions,

The Age of Man violated Mother Earth’s Right,

 He turned everything into an exploitation site.

The egoistic Man was blinded, in his desire to rule the world,

He disrespected what he worshipped once as ‘Sacred Grove’.

Deforestation, global warming, and pollution,

Man’s existence was looking like autophagy in action

Mother Earth, ‘Gaia’ faced a crisis of existence,

To see the flora and fauna it breeds gasping for even subsistence,

Gaia had to fight, to set the imbalance right.

To see it is a fair play for all her living tribes.

Now, all of a sudden, Man is in his own prison, out of fear for his existence,

Man, armed with every possible technology is perplexed in his reaction.

Gaia has given an indication of what could possibly be the repercussions,

Of mindless acts of plundering and not recognizing her existence.

A virus has set in motion, the long lost freedom of plant and animal life,

Man is witnessing a long lost site, which he himself had destroyed.

He needs to realize, as is his right, so do the other inhabitants have their right.

And that it was not the virus but humans that caused the suffering of every living kind.  ©

The Modern Contagion.

Sourced from internet

The rituals of purity and pollution,

Have always been in operation,

A shade or sight of an unclean,

Called for a ritualized bath, ensuring a virtue intact.

This pandemic seems so familiar,

Like the untouchability contagion of yesteryear,

Hardwired and inculcated too deep,

The privileged are keeping the distance with unnatural ease.

The obsession of handwashing, sanitizing,

And avoiding the strangers,

Everything so unnatural and unsocial,

Comfortably adopted by the ritual followers.

Some blinded, others not ready to recognize,

The casteist underbelly of the society,

This disease although of a Chinese origin,

It is so much Indian, with its feature of social distancing.

                    

Now the times have changed,

Digitally empowered, are working from home,

With the street vendors, farmers and the blue collared,

Left lurching in the quarantined zones.

New technologies seem hand in hand with old rituals,

Differentiating against those toiling physically on roads.

The capitalist modernity favors the privileged and empowered,  

Modern Contagion is playing along with the age-old discrimination.  ©

                                                                                                                       

The Wait

 sourced from internet

Out of the desperate looks around,

An eerie confusion grips me,

Nobody around is sure enough,

Life has become just a ritual in waiting.

The hollowness of the time,

Seems never-ending,

But still, I peep out of the window,

As if forcing the Sun into fading.

With no more sirens and breaks and a timetable shunted,

Already an informal life now seems even discounted.

In a fragile market system with a fragile body,

Life has become mired in an endless wait.   

I get to hear Markets, economy and business,

Is there no society of humans in this age?

Lockdown for some was leisure and boredom,

While I lost my purpose and means of subsistence.

But I wait, making silver of hopes,

Expecting, anticipating dawn,

But to witness its collapse every night,

I wait, just wait to return to my normal life!©

The worker and the Corona city

My clothes may be soiled,  face unkempt,

With a pair of rough hands and a set of bruised heels,

I shoulder the burden, I power the growth,

I take pride that I am the maker of the world

I am the worker

Who fights daily for bread,

I know no rest I know no riches’ chest,

But to toil in the Sun and earn the night’s bread.

But not every night I am a victor,

I deceive, win it, sometimes I succumb,

But never have I given up nor got disheartened.

I Stand my ground, fight my war of hunger and despair. 

But now I don’t understand,

Why everything has shut its door on me

My toiling, my services have not been honoured,

Left stranded, I feel disturbed and unsafe.

Let me go back to my near and dear ones,

Let me fall back on my trusted brethren

My village still provides for everyone,

Not like cities, where one feels alienated from everyone.

My life and wellbeing never considered worth it's due.   

Now, with everything shut, no means to earn my bread,

I hope to be shown a little respect,

As a fellow human, I want my share of breath,

The Right to a dignified life,

to at least be heard when you decide my fate.

I see my voice lost in the cacophony of learned sounds,

I wonder if they can imagine what a hungry belly sounds.

I mean no harm to anyone just let me be by myself,

Just give me my Right to life, just be a little considerate.

I too am a fellow human though little unkempt,

I too earn my bread toiling dawn to sunset,

Show me some respect, be a little considerate.   ©