A Pious Man Poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar

A pious man had gone to Burma
From where he came as a destitute,
Ran a petty shop on borrowed money,
Made to marry in late thirties to go
bankrupt,
Bore two sons and a daughter
From his equally poor but virulent
wife,
Became invalid in money and mind,
Lost his wife to his brother in celibacy,
Added one more daughter from him,
Lost the second son in electric shock,
Wandered and laboured for food,
Reaped every kind of humiliation,
And then died, later to be followed
By his wife, leaving the children
To be grown by the remaining father,
Who too died with children spreading
Under different shelters to live
And get married.
I shed my tears thinking that pious man,
Who gave me sweets when I was
Twelve, who begged of me with his Eyes
For money when I started earning.
04.10.2004