The Season Of Harvest Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

In the hot summer afternoon
The remembrance has taken my heart with joy
The sun’s glazing rays
The beauty that adored the earth
The gold spread in the fields
The wheat crop in the planes
The season of harvest
When the fertility rites are in bloom
The bounty on earth from the mother earth
Men and women the harvesters
Waiting for the final count of small packs
For their share of harvesting
The village drummer and the priest
They have a share too
The mighty bull the symbol of strength
Now tired for the thresher had not yet
Outsourced him and the machine had not yet taken
The place of the mankind

Lovers in anticipation of meeting the beloveds
The pride on both sides to have earned the harvest
The landowner in harmony with the whole activity
In symbiosis accepts the share of every one
The sparrows in flocks flying in the air
On a camel back the camel man loading the earthly gold
Water from the canal in the nearby stream
Young girls under the cold shadow of the thick tree green
Water from the pitcher which the tallest girl has brought
Dark hands filled with bangles made of silver
The man in turban with sickle whose handle carried beads

In the small Indian village when life was so simple
And gone are the days when the harvest was a fest
Sounds of machines and trolleys pulled by tractors
The tall girl is now confined to her home
The man with the turban is now searching for a job
‘Times have changed’ every one mourns
Humans have receded from the life of nature
The disease has taken the village by storm
Walls and walls and walls of mud
The landowner has built a house of bricks
Metalled roads have taken away the softness of the land
The camel is no more a possession of pride
The bull strong has now lost its breed

The vet has introduced breeding artificial
The cow no more knows the bliss of the union
The state now announces the benefits of development
Benefits to whom the state knows not
Relics of the past have become the villages serene
The priest has taken the gun instead of his rosary
The village drummer is now planning rock and roll
The landowner is a politician
The son of the tallest girl has gone to the military
Patriotism is hanging the picture of the general
The taxman waiting in the ambush
The air is polluted
Polluted with ideas
Foreign to the village
The dream of the past
A nightmare of the future