The Ramparts Of The Rodents Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

In a public hospital in Chennai city,
the rats, cats and dogs had a free run
to ICU and the Operation Theatre
with no one to one chase among them
and remained rampant
eating the breads and biscuits
and biting the patients now and then.

The rodents dared bustle
to mushroom and built an empire there
with burrows here and there to hide
and nibbled the kids with uncalled dates.
The dead bodies kept in the mortuary
had their cheeks and feet damaged.
The scientific minds of the people
sensed that some ghouls had bitten them.

The government has flexed its muscles
to hustle the rodent control teams,
to lure the rats for guzzling
the pesticides injected tomatoes.
In a Government Hospital no officer
would spend from the paltry fund
to nip the menace in the bud.
The Sanitary and the Health officers
have no time to visit these hospitals
If they go out and scare the roadside-stalls,
with stringent laws to punish
for the poor upkeep, they receive bonus
for the Diwali, Ramzan and the Christmas.

The people in our country
squat, eat, urinate and sleep
and make the premises unhygienic
with leftovers of all kinds.
The people are indigenous
still crawling to get clean habits.
But the rats are from the ramparts
of the rat temple off Bikaner
where the people throng to see
the luck-bringing white rat.