Traffic Poem by Swapan Deep Singh

She was 8, she knew few things.
She was young, she could hardly know.
But she could feel what she was going through,
And she could do nothing.
Her fault was - a poor father, an ailing mother.
Ah! She could sell something to bring some alms:
The alms won’t be enough.
They needed a plenty.

And she could sell something,
So she sold herself.
Obviously against her will;
Her father – poor, but was he a father?
A ‘father’ who brought her in the world to sell her;
A ‘father’, who gave her in the bazaar
In exchange of some worthless green pieces of paper
That would neither cure his wife,
Nor mend his own life.

But she has to go
Because the word is lent, the deal made.
Oh yes! The ‘good’ is ready for ‘use’.
Her new owner awaits her.
She doesn’t know what he would do.
Will he make her ‘work’ all day?
Will he make her a ‘doll’ to “play” whenever he wants?
Will he....?
But see! She can do nothing;
Because it is absolutely her fault
That her father is poor, mother ailing.

Here comes the day,
The doom’s day.
She leaves, never to return;
Never to see her brother again;
Never to touch her sister again;
Never to kiss her mother again.
But yes she will get something;
She will get the humiliation she is destined to.
Yes she will go through the ordeals she “deserves”.

Her childhood destroyed;
Her life ruined.
She stands there waiting
For a ‘Saabji’ to come,
To pick her up and drive her home.
Her very new ‘prison’ home.



Swapan
Oct 2007