My Heart Stealing Student Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

“ I will break your limbs
if you dare go out of the school”,
I bellowed and gave the boy in first standard,
a prod with the stick.
The little Saran wasn’t a bit quailed.
Wearing a loose shirt
and moving his tongue from left to right,
“ I stole only a half-pant
and keep it safe in the hostel”,
the prowler said and looked at the ceiling fan.
“ You egg-lifter (from the shop) , I’ll throw you out”
I yelled and lightly slapped at his cheek.
He turned his face to the left.
“What’s your father? ”, when I shouted,
“He is dead”, he said with ease
and turned his back to me.
When his teacher told me
the boy was kidnapped from the hostel
and taught to steal and beg in trains by a blind rogue,
pointing to some cigarette burns on his hands
for disobeying the orders of that wretch,
“My God, then how he was brought back? ”,
I asked her caressing him.
“While the sot was crossing the rail track,
leading the boy from behind,
the thief was hit by a train
but the boy escaped and turned up here”.

I looked at him with wonder
as he got God’s grace as a child.
“O my Saran! ”, I cried and scooped him
and put him on a branch of a Punga Tree.
I told his teacher to dote on him
and looked up to advise him.
But he has gone!
Interesting incidents intervene
to show the thrills of human strife.