Eighteen Hundred & Sixty Six Poem by Bishnupada Sethi

Visible are all the tiny bones
Beneath the dried up skin so thin-
Lying on a floor mat
The little one
Barely few months old
Makes soft whining sounds
The volume so feeble
And hardly reaching anyone
Excepting his mother.

Outside everywhere
Everything is not as usual.
The Sun is fierce.
Hot and swirling wind
Whip up the fine sand underfoot.
The land is dry and desert like.
A failed monsoon brought
So savage a drought.

For the farmers hardworking
Bumper harvest became
A memory so distant.
Restless were all becoming
As a monster was chasing
In the guise of hunger
Driving out the ablest
Leaving the weakest behind.
Like flies, tens of thousands
Not escaping the situation
Dropped dead on the ground.

The ponds were dry.
No sign of any life was there.
Trees robbed of leaves, soft branches
Had no shade to offer.
Vultures, jackals, birds of prey
Made most of the days
As bodies of people not yet dead
Still breathing were left strewn.

Confronted with nightmares
Not knowing what to do
As no milk yielded
From her dried up breasts
Of a fully emaciated body
The mother took out a stone pestle
Thinking to drain out a little milk
Hammered on it over a mortar
Alas! only the blood to come out.

My race is alive since then.
More than a century and half have passed
Thanks to the mother-
We have sucked her blood and milk.