My Sweat

MY SWEAT Educated in English convents They made cool abodes As their working precincts Lawyers, engineers, doctors Computer laurates And smart bureaucrats All this lucky lot Living at money jetting fountains Are devouring their fortunes To downright fulfillment I followed my father’s school By going to the paddy fields And dredging eight hours For a mere fifty rupees I never grudge my affluent brethren For taking away every grain Of my hand-grown produce Leaving me with broken-rice porridge Nor the wind and scorching Sun For sapping my vim With their incessant simoom But only rue at my drawback That my profuse, ever-oozing sweat Is not fit to slake my thirst Sathya……