Train No: 6009 Poem by Rajendran Muthiah

Mumbai Mail is a jail
causing me to pass through terrible ordeals
station by every small station,
where its hooting woke no one.
As if to bail me out of my strain
an old money lender with his wife
got in and sat opposite at Wadi.

Snacks galore!
Plate after plate
they were emptying
and driving away the beggars
by waving their hands,
when their harsh words
failed to keep them at bay.
In two, three places
they went out, gave sweet packets
to their kin who touched their feet
and blessed them by snuggling them close.

Poor women with babies,
children singing and dancng,
boys and girls cleaning the coach,
the flesh starved skeletons,
buffeted by illness,
the physically and mentally challenged……
Nobody got a coin or a measly food from them.
Giving alms might be a drain on their resources.
and a stain on their palms.
To cause a flutter in their hearts,
I slid down some coins
in the hands of the misfortune.
But the stubborn man
guided all the beggars towards me.

They dropped coins of high value
into the rivers Krishna and the Tungabadra
murmuring the name of some god.
But their coins didn’t slip down
into the river of suffering humanity.
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