Cliterature
 

Vivekanand Jha

Dispossessed Motherland


I am from the land

Reduced to handful sand

Where is only mud

Left by devastating flood.

 

Here is no crop to reap

But only blood to creep

On our fate to weep

And feet not rise to leap.

 

Here is no food to eat

No room to express the wit

No place to peacefully sit

Good enough to cause the fit

As we are by poverty hit.

 

Here is no fuel to be lit

No milk in the mother’s teat

We have only dust to beat

Bleak and barren land and wit.

 

Here is no work to do

So we have earning few

And we have courage to muster

To gather the bread and butter.

 

Here is no life utility

Here is only killing by brutality

Which exposes administrative futility?

By their nature of duality.

 

Here is no feather in the cap

Only the news of kidnap

In the mean time you nap

Child is dispossessed from mother’s lap.

 

Here is no morality to be taught

If you do death to be bought

Don’t give the suggestion unsought

Which only misery to be brought.

 

Here is only the battle to be fought

One-year flood is another year drought

We are caught in the current of time

There is no difference

 Between the age of old and prime

 

Here is no moment of auspicious, only ill omen

People are living in the devil’s domain

To earn livelihood, what can do the men?

Go miles and years away to deadly den

Lovelorn of their children and women.

 

Here is no magic wand

Men beat their own drum and band

Here are only foes, hardly any friend

Here is none for mistakes to amend

Here is no right for dignity to defend

This is a dispossessed motherland

This is nothing but a Waste Land.