As A Writer, What To Narrate It?

As a writer started I my journey long back in the eighties And since then have been writing, Devoting near about ten to twelve hours to studies daily But none supported me In my onward journey. My father wanted to see me posted in the administrative service But chose I differently, Struggled, suffered and sacrificed And life taught me In full destitute instead of being well-to-do. I published my first collection of poems, The Ferryman (Songs of Soul) From which the excerpts appeared in Debonair magazine, Bombay With the comments of Adil Jussawalla And after that fell seriously ill And there had been a little hope of survival. Again, something saved me and the struggle continued in And while moving to the university after my M.A. in English As for my Ph.D. on D.H.Lawrence, The bus I was travelling turned turtle And I came out of the window thanking God As just it took a curve on the sideway mud And turned over. Again, did I my M.A. in History and Pol.Sc. Without being given a part-time teaching job, Neither in a college nor in a school, The customers used to take the milk from our dairy farm And used to pay not properly, The servants too had been bad. I used to milk the buffaloes and cows from VII upto my Ph.D. With my hand, Forty litres a day And used to look after But father had not been so worldly And at that time the salary too had been low. We had the farmlands seventy kms. away from the service place of my father But the production never did it come to regularly, As we had been so humble and submissive, From the tillers and farmers Given on contract And they showing reasons for the deficit always, As for scanty rains, poor harvest and theft. Even then doing household works and ill-paid tuitions, I supported and promoted many a journal poet After subscribing to little journals But forgot they, Moving ahead, Left me behind And I too cared not for name and fame. Many of my poems saw not the light of the day And the rats gnawed them, The white ants ate into, Snakes sat into, The scorpions came out from sometimes. If this be the thing, how to call myself a poet, How to write poetry, How to think of survival as a poet, How to save the old books of father? Many in the house ask it, How long will you go reading, Why no to sell the old sheets of paper to the hawkers, Why to keep the rooms stocked with?