The Virus on Diwali Night

The Virus on Diwali Night

--

As the night deepens,

The crackers outside turn boisterous,

As if they have won some war,

Surmounting an insurmountable pathogen,

Sitting in a corner, I ponder,

Have they lost it?

Why are they giving me

A fertile playing ground

Are they not exhausted enough?

Has grief not taught them?

Or the lost jobs are okay is it?

How about those soiled feet of the migrants,

The hollow eyes of the father

Looking for food for his hungry kids?

Or is this a ploy?

To fool me,

Now that they have,

I am told, a vaccine or two,

Apparently, it will reach the end of the world.

And I will be stopped.

He he ho ho hi hi

Sure please try,

To confuse me as much as you want,

But my job is not done yet.

Since you will not learn,

Continue behaving like nincompoops

I can always absolve myself of guilt

In front of my maker.

Saying: look, it's not me,

But those blokes, who kept

Digging their own graves, now with crackers

To add to soiling the air, not masking, or distancing,

Not going by science,

But with their dear leaders.

100 years later,

when I will be back again,

Through one of my great-grandkids,

I will just let them know the secret sauce.

It is easy to decimate these reprobates,

No big deal to triumph on planet earth,

Just fire up their egos, desire, and a

Few other related vices they consider as virtues,

Boy! You will be ready to go.

What about that infant child

In rags on the road, born today?

In circumstances she had no control upon;

How do I keep myself from her though? 

• By Chirantan Chatterjee, Ahmedabad, November 2020