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Poems

Àŧùl Mar 2015
So aged he is, but still so zealous for his job.
It feels like he has only known his rickshaw.
The ancient bard in him tells Punjabi poems.
He belies his wrinkles as he pedals his ride.
Just putting to shame his fellow rickshaw pullers.
None remembers or even cares to know his name.
He just pedals and remembers his deceased wife.

He told me a Punjabi tale of partition...

"We were really happy when it happened,
I was 16 and married to my beautiful wife,
But then he pressed for a separate Pakistan,
Just so much wicked was this demand of his,
Punjab was alight due to some people's doing,
We were to cross river Ravi en route to Amritsar,
In Lahore my childhood home was burnt to ashes,
My beautiful wife was still so young at that time,
She was ***** on the banks of river Ravi & killed,
In no cloth was she draped as they burnt her body,
After pouring whiskey all over her lifeless body."


His voice broke and a stream of tears escaped,
Down his eyes they flowed like the river Ravi,
"In front of my two eyes the men had ***** her,
Her mistake? Looking at them once & smiling,
Sin as great to be punished by such brutal drab?
What God, Ishwar or Allah did they follow?
I have known all & none advocates ****,
To which parents could they born?
Must be the devil & the witch."


By now his nose was red and his sobs audible.
He said, "She was not just *****, she was also killed,"
The ancient rickshaw puller gasped for breath as he said,
"Would the high heavens thank them for killing my wife,
She was a Hindu and an idolater with my mangalsootra,
Why they spared my life I have no idea but just remorse,
Will their Allah or God spare them on Doomsday?"

==============
And Google knows who pressed for a separate Pakistan in the name of communal majority.

My HP Poem #813
©Atul Kaushal
Somehow he pulls along
He breathes
In his little width of life,
He gasps
In making that width
When moves flesh
That far outweighs
What he gets at the ride’s end,
Sweats it out in the sun
Splashes in the rain
A pedaling run
Joyless but gritty
That if can be made
Would fetch him his bread
From the rider in comfort
To the puller who transports
Mountains of loads
Knowing not to pause
Till drawn by fate
For a rest in sunset!
In owl-moon night
when doors are closed
in shut out light
lanes breathe morose

He carries the weight
dead in drunk sleep
in chilled night’s sweat
of tightened grip

On side of street
men burning logs
seize some heat
as need too dogs

But he must run
errand of hell
till job is done
moon’s face goes pale

Jangle hand’s bell
veins swell up taut
marks frame frail
battle hard fought

From lane to lane
his stone feet roam
till rests his pain
on pavement home!