What are they looking for?
No rainbow in the sky
No deaths in the apartments
No riots or rapes or raids
In the neighbourhood
No street violence
No cow or goat thieves caught
No child lifters lynched
There is no unrest in the town
Sunday morning
People are buying the best
For a sumptuous lunch
Some will book flats
Some will buy cars
Some will wed in the evening
Some will throw a party at night
Why do they look so tense?
Is there any news of shutdowns?
They are not factory hands
Manual labourers from the outlands,
Is there any hike in petrol prices?
They pedal rusted cycles,
Why are they worried, then?
The minute a babu comes,
They surround him like a cloud of bees,
A hair-splitting bargain is made,
Some are sold for the day,
The rest, defeated but not depressed,
Keep waiting for the next turn
Thus, some win the day
Many surrender and return
Home in empty hands,
But with more obstinacy,
The next morning
They again come to the town
To sell their body fluids
for a couple of notes
Again some can
Many can’t
So they wait and wait and wait…
For days, weeks, months and years
They have no Sundays,
No holidays, no birthdays,
They have only days to toil
