1. Even in poverty grades exist
Even among beggars, there is professional race
Of might and power in various ways;
Everything depends on status and grit;
Begging slots allotted to every one
You may laugh, it is not mere fun.
2. Competing leaders even among them
seen
Persons of higher rank wield their power
Larger areas and popular spots they cover
Even among them quest for money and love seen
A code of conduct they should follow
Their dress code they are supposed to know.
3. Division of daily earnings from what
they got
Disabled beggars are given a bounteous share
Some ruffians a larger share declare
Some meek persons are content with what they got;
Temples and junctions their favored haunts
To arouse sympathy, God’s names they sing and chant.
4. They choose to wear tattered and torn dress
Some drench their dress coated with marks of blood
Some appear as maimed, semi-naked coated with mud
Some as poor orphans, others to impress
Some use God’s names and loudly sing
To make god-fearing people some coins to fling
Some beggars deformed on crutches moan and moan
Some stir our pity with repeated cries standing alone.
5. Though all are not lazy, perverted
lot
Some genuine, pitiable cases touch our hearts;
Neglected by kin and in miseries caught;
Some have unpolished skills and art
Unrecognized by society-- they gleam
Through them as evanescent dream
Though appreciated only by a few
Who help them giving a lease of life anew.
6. Beggars too in their profession face
Intimidation to be touts for vice
And lead an immoral life of lies;
Subject to lust and cheating ways;
Exposed to grievous diseases grave;
They suffer till death and none to save
Till they become objects of lust
Till they become useless as dust.
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1st April 2025 Somaseshu Gutala
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