SARALA BALACHANDRAN

SARALA

BALACHANDRAN

Striving For Survival 1

We have been striving for survival

Just for a morsel

Morning and night

Living in hell of discomfort

Their children carrying

Heavy loads

For a meagre sum

To feed their ailing parents

And their little stomachs

Suffering hunger pangs

Neglecting themselves always

Their spine stooping and bent

Nerves all in danger

Parents having whatever

Their children bring

Which is just a bowl

Of rice gruel with salt

And go to sleep

Under a torn blanket!

This has been going on for

Years and years

There seems to be

No improvement

In present conditions

As hoarders hoarding

All what they can

At the cost of the

Striving of the poor!

God! Open thy eyes

Come to the rescue

of man kind

and save us from this hell

of struggle, we are unable to move on

Our legs have become weak

And heart weaker and minds blank!

Our children quietly suffer

Shedding tears and wiping

them when they go to bed!

Striving For Survival 2

She was all of twelve

With five stomachs to feed

Living in a thatched hut

Very damp and affected by

Incurable illnesses

No money to see a doctor

She didn't know what to do

She started working in a rich home

Washington utensils and clothes

Her hand blistered and pained

She couldn't say no to her master

Who was tough and rough?

Ogling at her tender buds

About to bloom

And that night

She was pulled and pushed

Onto his lavish bed

And she lay there with blood oozing

At her tender age of twelve

Her parents didn't know

From where the money came

That night she never returned

No one cried

But God alone shed tears

From above!

She was quietly buried

In a faraway jungle

No one bothered

No one cried except God!

This was the striving for survival

For that lil girl of twelve!

Ashamed to say we are humans!

The Rag Picker Boy

The sky is my father

Who gives me warmth?

To walk and pick up the rags

The earth is my mother

Who gives me space to sleep?

Cuddling her bosom happily

Sometimes chewing the green grass

Which quenches my thirst for a while!

I have a lil room with bamboo n hay

With full of garbage

Suffocating inside

Full of creeping worms

I sleep under the sky

Looking at the stars bright

Pleading to God to give me

One meal a day to fill my

Folded stomach growling with hunger

End of the day

I am tired and tears rolling down my dirty cheeks

I sit down on the roadside

To have two roti’s and tea

Which hardly fills my stomach

I drink water from the nearby pond to feel full till the next morn!

Again, the routine starts

Carrying a dirty bag on my weak

Shoulders bending and picking up

The dirty rags which I dump as i see a vat nearby!

My body is full of fleas and blisters

Giving me unbearable pain!

This is my life's story; I am all of ten years

I have none to take care of me

As i am an orphan

Abandoned by my unwed mother, I was told!

I face my destiny boldly

And when I am weary n tired

I lie looking at the sky, my father

Who warms up my body with his love!

End of the week I sell my rags

Some usable, to the shops who pay me a little money and I jump with joy

I can have a stomach full of food

For a day!.

I am never discouraged as i know

I am born to pick rags

Throughout my life

And there's no use crying losing my will!

SARALA BALACHANDRAN

SARALA BALACHANDRAN is a resident of Kolkata west Bengal living with her family. She is a free verse writer, author and poet.  Her poems have been published in national and international anthologies