Life On Foot Path

How miserable is life on the footpath,

Only the dweller can realize,

Amidst want of all basic amenities,

I live on the seamy side of a painful life,

I am a dweller on the footpath,

Having no home and no hearth,

Abject poverty and homelessness dragged me to the abode of the footpath,

With fear and uncertainty, I live incurring govt. wrath,

Even inside the torn tent, my child had taken its birth,

I live a very painful life much more than a stray dog,

As nomads move with polythene tent and tattered rug,

When Police come to dismantle me from the pavement house,

I play the game of hiding and seek like cat and mouse,

Political people come and console me with golden dreams,

But the dreams get shattered after exercising my voting rights,

We both husband and wife are daily wage earners,

And to live life with paltry income, it's really woeful for a pavement dweller,

Life on the pavement is very painful and unhygienic,

Some unsocial beings wander at late night being alcoholic,

In hot summer the blazing rays heat up,

And in winter I shiver with cold,

Whenever it rains, the sufferings multiply many-fold,

Malnutrition, stinking, open drains and garbage heaps with flies all around,

The dusty pavement, din and bustle of the humdrum city life are the main reasons for unhealthy ground,

Neither I am a man of a metropolis,

Nor deemed as a rural poor,

Bereft of all govt. facilities,

I still live as a street pauper.