Agony

Echoes of
At daybreak, 
I rushed out, 
and stood in the queue. 
Many had been there since the night before, 
lying down in a corner.

As time passes, 
the crowd grows larger, 
larger still. 
I have been standing for a long time; 
the clock then strikes ten.

At last, the officials arrive—

“Look, more than fifty... 
So, 
it won't be possible today. 
The rest of you may leave; 
come again tomorrow.”

That man there, 
who had stayed awake all night, 
whose eyes had closed for a moment at dawn— 
he now finds himself beyond
the first fifty.

People keep running around, 
sometimes to the bank, 
sometimes to the Aadhaar centre.

They say, “Tell us your phone number, 
the one to be linked with Aadhaar...”

“Sir, I don't have a phone. 
I asked my son, 
requested him to write it down for me.”
He said, 
“You don't need all that anymore. How many more days will you live? 
There's no point linking all these things now.”

Whenever I go to the bank, 
there too the queue is endless. 
Some have been sitting there 
since morning, 
some arrived even earlier, 
without having eaten.

With frail, 
worn-out bodies, 
an old man and an old woman 
say,
“Our household survives on pension. 
We heard some link is missing.” 
They told us at the sub-branch, 
“Go to the main branch; 
they will do it. 
Otherwise, 
you will no longer receive your pension.”

“Then how shall we eat? 
None of us slept last night, 
lost in worry.

Our sons and daughters live separately, 
we live apart, 
we eat and manage on our own. 
No one even asks, 
openly, 
whether their parents are still alive 
or have already died...”

Those who live above, 
the people of the high halls, 
do not understand 
this agony.

If you do not know the rules, 
you must endure neglect.

One says, “Go there,” 
another says, 
“Not here, over there.”

Thus the day passes, 
on an empty stomach.

At the end of the day, 
I return home 
with two five-hundred-rupee notes.

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