My Village Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

The hamlet where I was born had been a little village
By the side of the river
Which used to dry in the summer
And which used to overflow in the rainy days for a few days
When the days full of shower and downpour.

Away from the road, it was near about two kilometres
And taking to the raw alley,
We used to reach the village
By the evening descending and darkening
Or the summer noon hot and perspiring.

A thorp of a few homes, mud-built and straw-thatched,
With no books, nothing to do,
Without any post-office, shop or electricity,
The village used to roll in its days.

The simple folks used to live by simply,
Starting with the daybreak,
Someone bathing in the river,
Someone readying for a worship
Of the household deity.

The housewives going to the river to fill in the pitcher
With water,
Filtering it through the sandy surface
By holing in and cleaning the small source
And filtering the sands
With a piece of cloth on the pitcher.

People used to go one house to another
As for bringing the red embers,
Fire hidden in the ashes
As for to fan it and burn the hearth
At daybreak.

To get the breakfast was a problem,
They used to take the stale food of the night-time,
Actually, late at midday, most probably by 3 p.m.,
They used to finish their midday meal.

Village-life had been indeed very slow,
The bullock-cart as the source of conveyance
Moving out from one village to another,
People going on foot,
As a few had a bicycles.

To be with a radio set is to be with people
In your courtyard,
People sitting around at eve
And hearing the radio,
Passing the night.

Without the torchlight and the slippers,
People moving out in the dark,
Taking the name of the snake-god
As he will save,
Sleeping on the muddy floor.

During the cold winter,
They used to put on straw as for to warm up,
By the fire-side they used to sit and pass by,
Warming with
By putting a fire pot under the string cot.

With nothing to read,
Neither with sufficient light or lamp,
They just pass on their days in full darkness,
Just with one short-time burning earthen lamp,
Burning with mustard oil.

The temples made of mud,
Vermillioned or frescoed,
Had been the spots of their faith,
No school had been therein
And even if it had been, it used to run
Under the shady trees.

The small children half-clothed, half-fed,
With the clumsy shorts slipping
Or shirts torn and buttonless,
Used to move towards
Holding the shorts and the knapsack to sit on.