Sewerage Poem by Kizhekepat Sankaran

I am the woman from underground
Happy to live there forever.
Dark, smelly and unkempt
Men of birth don’t look at me.

Curved, crooked and sinuous
I reach everywhere.
The modest and the majestic
All give me alike.

And I am happy that way.
For discrimination ay’nt something for me.
If someone gives me gold or diamond
It’s truly by mistake, rarely though.

Then with gloves and masks
They unbowel and fish my insides.
They search like thieves
And violate my solitude.

What unprincipled louts
For they don’t believe that
Things that are once given away
Don’t anymore belong to them.

In Mumbai
They treat me differently.
I am bare, my bosom uncovered
My loin unclothed.

I like the wind and the sun and the air.
But am I beautiful enough to sunbath naked?
Do they really love me
That they have me on surface?

I doubt, for they sniff and make faces
And turn their eyes disgustingly away.
My shame is double then,
It pains more when rejected after a ray of hope.

They dig at me every time they get a chance,
The wicked arm of the shovels gash at me.
Some little brain from the corporation office
May have ordered to split my spine.

I like the lowly good fellows, dark shining bodies
When they descend to purge me clean.
Often cables, of phone and electricity, want to live with me
And huge, strong water pipes I envy want to bed me.

Everyday I see mean saffron, red, green and multicolored flags march past me
Accompanied by shouting and cacophony.
When swanky cars dig their heels
I long to make love to their wheels.

I am happy
I am home to a zillion mosquitoes
And harbor nature’s best friends;
Ants, rats, amoebae and hyacinths.

These humans I serve most
Are nature’s worst enemies.
They dump chlorine, mercury and
DDT into my guts.

I have no choice but to turn it to my bosom pal
The earth, mother of patience and solidarity
Her womb full of pall
Choked and feeble she cries in agony.

I am helpless.
All I do is warn those fellows
Through stench, slime and disease.
But thick skin is the nature of the fools.

One day all this will come home to roost.
I tell them that their brains will fill with encephalitis,
And their liver overflowth with jaundice.
They don’t care for that’s a burden their children will bear.

All is well for them.
These honorable men and women.
Busy with their own rut,
Laughing and indifferent in their smut.