An Indian Cobbler Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

An Indian cobbler
I see sitting for ages
By the street side
Under heat and dust,
The Indian cobbler,
The Indian cobbler
Stitching and sewing
The shoes
With his tools
Mending
And polishing,
Cutting and pasting.

Indian cobbler,
An Indian cobbler
Cobbling,
Mending and repairing,
Joining the soles,
Pasting
And fixing
And stitching,
Pinning
With his hammer,
Stitching with the awl
And polishing.

The world has changed,
But the cobbler
Sitting under the tree,
By the street side,
On the platform
With the wooden box
Going and seeing the boots,
The leather sandals
In this age
Of resin and plastic models
Dusting the eyes,
A profession in harness,
Die in harness.

A boy comes,
Gets into the train bogey
Marking the boots and sandals
Keeps asking for polish
And glow shine,
As for something,
A cobbler,
An Indian cobbler
In harness,
Abject poverty and dismay,
Labouring hard
For what,
Just bread and butter
And that too not sufficient
For survival.