by Sharanya Retnakumar
[box]When does one realise the real pain that an adversity brings? Read this poem by Sharanya Retnakumar to find out.[/box]So many things had been said and repeated
some mornings I failed to hear.
Perhaps I thought as I shook the paper out; so, what else is new?
I did see the floods and then the protests,
the shootings and the remorse,
the candles lit and songs sung.
I must have tsk-ed and then clicked my tongue
and hurriedly brushed my sparse hair and cursed my boots filled with yesterday’s rain.
So many things were “sooo not shocking anymore”-
someone’s eighty year old mother was raped,
a new trust for New York’s hungry,
Tunisia showed some promise but what’s the use?
We stood around the coffee machine
and cursed the cold coffee
and shushed when the boss ambled by.
Dare to care: said some ads,
billboards everywhere;
‘show us your heart,
where is your heart?’
They all asked, jangling little money boxes
patiently waiting for even just “a dollar”.
A dollar? A doughnut for a dollar. Maybe even a single condom for one;
why give away a dollar I mumble and tuck it back behind my ear.
They said my name,
they said it again;
I thought wrong number. I said wrong number.
They then called me back. I watched the phone ring and then die.
I said it back to me.
He who sat with me reading the news on damp mornings,
he who said why do you not care more,
he, they said, had crashed on a curb.
Someone’s mother was raped,
someone’s under-aged daughter beat up by her abusive boyfriend,
someone else had a baby at fifteen,
someone killed their parents for the lack of ten rupees,
and someone’s husband had just died
on a lonely curb,
spitting blood as people walked by
tucking dollar bills behind their ears.
Pic : Michael Prince – http://www.flickr.com/photos/007bond/
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