Farmer's Son

FARMER’S SON There’s the sky, look at it Giggling with the high-mast light Twinkling not with the stars, but with rays of illumination Coming from the back windows of a thirty storey mansion, There stands in the balcony, like a lonely school boy The subdued farmer’s son. Head held high, eyes gazing the sky Staring intently at its vastness, Admiring the stretch to the far off remote village Where dull dusky dark and remorseful it seems There, with the rest of his family, his father lives. Skinny face as if a marathon runner Two packs ab and a pair of distinct ribs Flaunting like the horns of a merino sheep, His father could challenge the best of the fatless torsos Daily diet comprising three hundred gram rice and a black tea sip. The farmer’s son when in college After a long long wait As if in the queues of a government ration shop Could able to get a pair of new dresses, Witnessing half-barter With the brother of a cloth merchant His father sold paddy two full sacks. There was more harvest that time Paddy fetched a good amount though not much more Four sacks exchanged for a second hand bicycle Two for buying household needs in the village fair, Another three for buying good food Two medicines one for guests And five sacks kept aside For the marriage of his grown-up sister. Now than the previous, the yield is much more With hybrid seeds and costly fertilizer Fifty per cent of the harvest just flows down like water And from the left over, One third is being engulfed as a lion’s share By rupees two a kilo rice-empowered Nearly extinct sophisticated labour. All the efforts to keep his early esteem Went in vain as the son of the farmer Had no money in pocket for labour payment Migrated to the city as an unskilled worker, Adding to the construction of a thirty storey apartment With two hundred and fifty a meagre He works each day for twelve odd hour.