'Home' in the Time of Covid-19

The poem below is my overly simplistic take on the plight of the millions of daily wage labourers, who were rendered jobless/homeless overnight, by the  PM's sudden decision to impose a three-week nationwide lockdown, in  an effort to stop  the onslaught of Covid-19 in its tracks.  Even though it was a timely and laudable decision in the right direction, the chaos it created in its wake, encapsulates the amnesia of an administration, which has failed over and over again, to take into consideration this crucial section of our society,  the daily wage labourers, a chunk of whom are migrant workers from other states. Living in the shadow of wretched poverty, they symbolize the backbone of the country, and without their ineffable energy and endurance, we would be dysfunctional as a nation.

One cannot even begin to surmise the harshness of  circumstances which propel these people towards cities to work as low-wage labourers. Yet, the fact that, in the absence of any kind of public or private transport, due to the  lockdown, they chose to walk home, unfazed by  hundreds of  miles which seperated them from their destination, is not only a proof of their courage and determination, but  also highlights the pivotal role home and family play in one's life. 

Let us go,

Through  the screeching silence

Of  abandoned highways,

Swathed in April haze

Desolate and unfriendly,

Like the city we leave behind us.

Let us go,

To our humble houses where

Birds sing, and skies are not 

Ragged and shorn, where

We can joke, and laugh, and 

Share our pain.

Let us go,

Dunno how we will walk these

Endless distances: 

hungry children in our arms:

But, get there, we will:

Somehow... sometime...

Let us go,

Away from this huddled poverty,

Flung across the shadows of 

the skyscrapers, which pierce 

the earth and the skies, and know

no compassion. 

Let us go,

To sleep under the deep blue

Of the starry nights,

And listen to the wind in the fields, 

And to the water lapping

In the pitcher.