Ever since hutments cropped up around,
Like a lone central column,
The singular prop for our lives
Has been that serrated sickle.
To snap the umbilical cord
That noosed around my neck
In the hands of my granny
What came handy was… that gory scalpel
To prevent post parturition paralysis
To the just yeaned dappled buffalo
By trimming the hoofs of the new-born
My brother suddenly recalled that Nail-clipper.
This black crescent moon
Was the harvester of ten acres
Standing a prop to my father bow-bent to reap
Sharpening it occasionally on his stretched hands
This pale semi-annular ring of rain
Was the butcher’s knife
That chopped the long-legged hen to pieces
To relieve the eaves of hutments
Sneezing from the cold caught in relentless rains.
For my mother working at tobacco barns
It worked for the pepper spray
When the son of a bitch… the owner
Demanded her modesty…
Making him run naked doffing his apparel.
No sooner the teacher had called it a day
For the children scurrying home
Before the bell fell silent
It was the hanger tucked in the hole of a wall
Which shouldered the burden of school bags.
It did not strike me as a child ninny
Why my mother who got up before dawn
Made me pray in its direction,
But I now realized
God is but reassurance;
From the bag hanging on to the ragged sickle
Peeps through… the book of multiplication table.
Indus Martin
Born in Kajipalem, near Nijampatnam, in Guntur District of Andhra Pradesh Mr Martin was a student of AC College, Guntur. He did Masters in English Literature, Psychology and Education. He now Works Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan under HRD Ministry and was for some time Embassy Attaché Officer, Ministry of External Affairs.
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