To the gen-next

Years later...

I want to be found...

As a part of patchwork quilt

Still comforting,still useful

कहाँ  रहते हो?

ईमानदारी से,

बचपने से 

कहता हूँ "खुश"

पैदा होते ही 

हम चलते हैं ...

क्या कीमत ज़िन्दगी की? 

मील के  पत्थर के 

जब दोनों तरफ...

लिखी हो मौत

It’s the best time to be a gravedigger

It’s a lie that migrant labour is on the road

They were always on the road, if not crammed in urban shitholes

We would pass them on wheels; they were just a banal backdrop,

We were eyes back on our smart phones

And then Corona pressed the pause button

Like a sudden speed breaker, we asked the driver what happened.

There is a notice that said “road blocked”, we reversed and another said “Dead End”

It occurred, we are trapped and in isolation hells

Nameless but not faceless, formless but functional, they are no more the quick past tense

We had to lick our fresh wounds of puss and smallness

Those we called favours we doled out to our domestic help were over

It dawned we are as much as needy as them

For a while we played the Insta game by showing we do cleaning, mopping, cooking, as its our Pilates

And then hit us the reality,that any benefit mindset is in the past

We are not collectively grieving,rug pulled out

We are sharing “the reality” of everyday poor-mans living

Half salaries but full respect needs to be paid

Like them we have to go. Obstacle headfirst

Reintroduce us, they said, the pre covid world was not a good place

The new normal has to be more normal, more equal

If not lets declare ourselves white collared workers in a cemetery

Everyone is unanimous about this ,its official now

That it is the best time to be  a gravedigger?

Manav@CovID-19

Stretching is painful.Even to receive we have to stretch