My house was rent free,
to a bold bandicoot,
a secular intruder
to enjoy a free run.
When it gnawed tomatoes
I placed some rice nice,
smeared with some poison,
under the grinder
where its ancestors sojourned often,
cutting the copper coils
and making the motor dead.
The next morning had
a surprise in store for me.
The paper with the deadly matter
was on the verandah.
The rodent then climbed to the shelf
where I kept Pope, Swift and Johnson.
In the dead of night,
hearing its bites
I took a rod to finish it off.
But it gave the slip to me.
Only the satirists lost some corners.
A very good tunnel
next he dug
to guide the dirty water
into our drinking- water- well.
I got wild with rage
but to no avail.
When it ripped the tyre
of my two –wheeler,
I made a great drive
to trap it and kill it.
But by this time it’s kids
grew up to scratch the feet
of my sleeping daughter.
I am not a hardcore militant
or a mindless bomber,
to kill these innocent ones
which go behind an idol,
elephant-faced and pot-bellied
taking that abode for a jungle.
a delightful poem, humorous and yet with tenderness, and with all the tensions involved in our struggle with nature...
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
Rodents have every right to live on earth, as long as these animals behave themselves! ! but how can they behave themselves, when we had taken their land? Interesting poem!