Maybe Modiji Doesn’t Know About Us

I

In Lakhmipur Kheri, a Dalit man

who had returned from Gurugram

is found hanging in the fields.

The police had

beaten him up.

Crime: jumping quarantine.

The matter is under probe. 

II

“Maybe when Modiji decided to do this,

nobody told him about us.

Maybe he doesn’t know about us,” carpenter Ramjeet said.

III

“And what for anyway –

getting on those crowded buses will expose us

to the risk of contracting the infection,”

said Manju Kumari, house help, Greater Noida’s Omega-I.

IV

“Corona se pehle bhookh maar degi,

Hunger will kill us before the coronavirus,” Bhole said.

“Hawai jahazon se bimari ayi hai. Hum to laye nahi.

Par sadak pe bhookhe hum ghoom rahe hain.

The disease has come via aeroplanes. We have not brought it.

But it is we who are roaming the roads hungry,” Bhole said.