A pious man

A pious man had gone to Burma

From where he came as a destitute,

Ran a petty shop on borrowed money,

Made to marry in late thirties to go bankrupt,

Bore two sons and a daughter

From his equally poor but virulent wife,

Became invalid in money and mind,

Lost his wife to his brother in celibacy,

Added one more daughter from him,

Lost the second son in electric shock,

Wandered and laboured for food,

Reaped every kind of humiliation,

And then died, later to be followed

By his wife, leaving the children

To be grown by the remaining father,

Who too died with children spreading

Under different shelters to live and get married.

I shed my tears thinking that pious man,         

Who gave me sweets when I was

Twelve, who begged of me with his eyes

For money when I started earning.

04.10.2004