Peasant’s Colloquial | Sasikanth Satakarni

In memory of elder brother Upendra Satakarni who died on 1/08/2010

My brother sun tanned
Circular bald atop the head
Spectacle drooping down the nose
To compensate the impaired hearing
Intense looks acquired over decades of toil
Always looked into the sky for rain
Measured years with
Cyclones and crop failures
Spoke only peasant’s colloquial
Bicycled unendingly
Home to farm and back
Sitting upright
Like a tree full of foliage
Mused about repayment
Of petty loans
Every night after dinner
Sat to write day to day ledger
With only debit and no credit
And an inevitable soliloquy followed
Rebuking an old maid who affectionately
Demanded the next day’s wage
Slept dreaming of crop opulence
Awoke all of a sudden with fright
For oncoming cyclone
Visualized scientific farming
But failed every time by
Drought and untimely rains
Here, he seemed sipping tea
Gone next moment
Every minute brimmed with unflinching
Hope to reap profuse profits
Cycled his way to farm
Thinking of life and death
At the same time and alternately
One morning gone never to return
With so many conflicts
All of a sudden, where did he go?
Did he conceive that going away
Is the panacea for all his problems
Now all alone, his bicycle
His true lifelong companion
Day and night weeps for him!