Her Children call her Peepli,
Tucked somewhere
Anonymously,
Therein Lived
And died,
And died,
By some standards,
A man.
Hori Mahato,
His ostensible name,
Dug hard earth -
That's what he did
Every single day
of his last golden years -
Under the stony sun
and village sky.
That's how he sweated
And how he lived by
And how he died,
in an eery Sisyphean way,
His wiry thin body
Worn down by Elements
and Fate
(or Circumstance for us
Who can afford
To quibble).
And,
As our eyes
retreat backwards
and forwards
To the city of dreams,
We find Natha
Again digging
The city's concrete earth,
(leaving morbid fame
and Home behind)
in abject
Anonymity.
