Memories Of A Failed Monsoon Poem by Dr. Bishnupada Sethi

Still a child he was then
Early his father left for heaven.
Fell on him the entire burden.
A sick mother
And a deranged elder brother
He was required to take care.

The fury of a mega cyclone
Uprooted all the life's support.
The loss was complete
Every crop sustained.

No one fathomed how
Stock of rice vanished so soon.
Steep was the rise in prices
In the markets
That people thronged.

Heard were the stories
Soldiers fighting the world war
Needed food.
Most of the grains
Got diverted there.

Down were the shutters.
Landlords didn't show up.
Nothing was left to mortgage.
Money lenders won't help.
While the rich hoarded stock
Guarding their granaries,
Clueless was everyone
If the bad time won't be over.

Lesser mortals in his village
Looked for whatever in the wild
They could consume.
The tree of tamarind was denuded.
Still luckier ones in their homes
Made tasteless porridge
Of pumpkin, gourds, edible roots
For filling up guts.

A married daughter
Of the neighbor's house
Came seeking for her father's help.
She was chased away
In the ugliest manner
As none would share food.
Never she went back home
No one knew what happened to her.

Barely ten years old
My father as a child
Blessed with a great strength
In the mind,
Walking on feet several miles
Toiling hard day and night,
He took up small trade,
Gathered some relief to survive.

The villages became deserted.
Destitute trekked to towns
Abandoning their families
Carrying only empty tin pots
In the hand for begging.
Bereft of strength, the bodies
Resembled as skeletons alive.
Only the village Chowkidar
Guarded the village border
Plundered whatever
He found with the strangers.

The passer-by didn't notice
Many bodies emaciated badly,
Crying and coughing children
Many stark naked, homeless
Motherless and fatherless
Moving to the towns
Hoping to find some relief.

No one was awe struck
Finding the human skulls
The bones strewn around.
Ubiquitous was the filth.
Appalling was the country side.
The temples had gone silent
No prayer was on the lips.
Human emotions had simply vanished.

It was common to notice
How merciless, a sweeper was!
Tying a rope around the neck
He would be dragging
A human body to a ditch.
No one had any strength
To bury the bodies
Do anything respectfully.

Eight decades later
Still recounting vividly
As a survivor of a failed monsoon
He narrates with a great pain
How the living and frail humans
Became the easy preys
Which the vultures and Jackals
Stray dogs feasted joyfully.

On a large ground there
Near the railway line
A mountain of bodies,
Skulls, bones were dumped
As the authorities cleaned
Men and women fallen on roads.

A man and a woman
Holding each other
From a village traveled together
To the town nearby
In the hope
Of provision there.
When the man lost all his strength
The poor lady could hardly help.
Only she took the man to the mound
Pushed him to be with those ill fated
Hoping the Municipality
To perform his rites.

*based on the experience of 1943 Bengal famine

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