The Tale of a Poor Indian Housewife (Blank Verse)

                                                                                                       

                                                             (  I  )

                              A pale lean figure with plaited frizzy hair

                              Crouches in a hut, in a smoky corner

                              No kitchen and drawing room, but all in one

                              A conical poor hut with muddy floor

                              In dirty surroundings with filthy air

                              Her children five or six with hungry stomachs

                              Play in front half-naked in tattered clothes

                              Lean undernourished skinny figures

                              Still clumsied by their untidy manners;

                              Cursing, fighting and quarrelling among themselves

                              As unruly as untrimmed wild thorny bushes;

                              Though she seems mute and unconcerned she loves

                              Them who suffer and share her pitiable state;

                              Sometimes vexed with her own, she turns too wild

                              Like a tigress and beats her own offspring

                              Shouting hoarse till her eyes turn red with tears.

                              Her heart aches to see her children too become

                              Victims to poverty with no promising change.

                              They grow like mildewed plants on barren sapless soil.

                                                    

                                                          (  I I  )         

                                                       

                           With dappled dawn she rises from her rags

                            And walks to village pond with earthen pots

                           She cleans her hut and hurries to the field

                           Or distant factory to earn her daily bread;

                           If not in houses to work as a servant-maid

                           To sweep, to wash and clean utensils till noon.

                           She goes back home to cook her scanty meal

                           To share with kids the remnants cold and stale

                           Given by her mistress and kind neighbors.

                           She works again leaving her kids alone

                           Who kill their time in idle gossip and sport

                           Deprived of learning and guidance they grow

                           Like wild creepers with no purpose or goal.

                                                    (  I I I )

                         Her husband, a man of rough and robust build

                          With bulging brawn and swelling sinews

                          His tanned body accustomed to hard labor

                          From morn to eve he toils to earn his wages  

                         Then spends his hard-earned money in dirty taverns

                         Or in wasteful gambling or in harlot’s dens;

                         Vexed with his state he frets and fumes at home

                         In drunken fit he scolds his dame and slaps

                         Her forgetting his faults in brutal way

                         And falls asleep cursing his wretched fate.

                                                 (  I  V  )

                       The poor housewife used to daily insults and blows

                       Still with the hope of setting her house aright

                       Never gave up the hope of future ahead

                     “My husband is good but for his vicious mates

                       In sober mood as mild as a cow he seems;

                       Let him not perish like a burnt our cigar 

                       Let me try to make him as happy as I can

                       Let me convince him about his spoiling friends

                       My kids too,nice as fresh blossoms in spring

                       Bad lads corrupted their ways:  if not how they

                       Helped me at home or in gardening toil?

                       I will sweat two hours more and make them learn

                       At school and help me in my household work.

                       Let me persuade my foolish husband too 

                       To quit drinking and worthless bragging mates.

                       Let me be honest and hope for good in future

                       By God’s mercy better times we behold “

                       She ponders thus and every day for better times

                       Amidst poverty, sorrows and daily strife.

                                 *********************************************

           31st May, 2018                                       Somaseshu Gutala


                 Note :                   

                             frizzy      =  dry and untidy     
                             mildewed =  infected with fungal disease
                             dappled    =  marked with different patches of color 
                             clumsied  = made dirty

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