Bhagjogini (Glow Worm) , A Countryside Girl Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Bhagjogini, a countryside girl
Of India
Living poorly
Below the poverty line
Into the nondescript hamlets and thorps

Eats what she is given
Late into the day,
In the morning the stale food
Of the night-time too
Not available
In her fate

She cleans the utensils
With her mother
At daybreak
And at dusk,
Sweeps the courtyard
Before it is dark

Shows candle-light
To gods
And bows before
The basil plant platform
And the Vishnu abode
Of the home

Goes to sleep early at night
Without the bed
And the sheet,
Without the light,
Without the resources
For healthy life and living

Bhagjogini, a simple villagerly girl
Living under scarcity,
Backward conditions,
A simple farmland girl
Of some agricultural family,
A farmer’s daughter of a village

Bhagjogini, she is unable to live,
Unable to sleep,
Take food,
A poor girl
Telling a poor sag of life
In the villages
Without hair oil and cosmetics

Her hair unoiled,
Her body without the body lotion,
Face without the cosmetics,
A girl so simple,
But so poor,
This the case of India,
Every Indian village,
Rich or poor

Taking her small brother
Into the lap of hers,
Moves she here and there,
A girl in dirty dress,
Torn and poorly-dressed,
The frock loose and shrunken
And the hair lousey.