The earth is dry.
Bone-dry
It hasn’t rained since ages.
Not since Kusum came from Ma’s womb six months back
You cannot till the land here
Life will be scorched into a dry despair by this relentless sun
So any effort seem full of naivety and hopelessness
I remember when the drought struck five years ago,
Thakurda did not leave the soil unattended,
People from our graam made fun of him
They thought he has gone senile and will drive the bulls to death
Bulls survived. Thakurda did not. Crops did.
We called it ‘bhogobaaner maya r thakurdar sesh bhagyo’
-God’s wonders and the last luck of my Thakurda

But this time the sun is passionately arrogant
It has come down with unchallenged anger and aggression
The parched land has stopped giving us what we want. Need.
There was a time
when the greens from the soil fed our bellies and our eyes
And now the eyes seem too tired and wasted
And the bellies rumble in hunger
There is not an inch of relief in sight
Nor a gust of hope

I stare into the brown with a strange melancholy and defeat
Why do we have to face such a curse?
Maya? Bhaggyo?
I guess a poor man’s belly need no extraordinary tale to
justify his misery
All in a mind’s work.
All in a luck’s charm.
Life could have been better
If only………
Thuddd.
I hear a voice of metal crashing against the stone-hard soil.
I look to my right and I see Ma
She screams at me with her big expressing eyes
and a lash of her heart,
full of rage and hope.
“My kobi son, somebody’s got to go pick up the axe”
Thuddd.