Lockdown

You people locked in houses tight

Bingeing on Netflix through the night

Because you need not wake up early

In the morning

From a distance, I hear you speak

In the emphatic privilege of which you reek

‘The net is slow,’ the techie sulks

Influencers shoot videos in bulk

‘Hookah bars, cafes, are all shut down’

‘Thank God, there’s home-delivery in town,’

the house wife blesses Swiggy and Zomato

‘I have heckled enough for the price of tomatoes’

First world problems these seem to be

Each luxury enough for a vagrant like me

I’m the homeless migrant who’s going ignored

The beggar who’s starving while you are bored

The friend you abandoned in that animal shelter

Betrayed by a world running helter-skelter

Away from my village I am forced to be

Far from my parents, wife, children who adore me 

I yearn for their voice, their touch, their sight

And pray they escape this sorry plight

Of which, I understand, you too are terrified

After all, you got a family just like mine

But if only you’d keep your selves aside

You’d see I too am spending sleepless nights

And while you binge watch on your favorite show

I pine for my family who doesn’t even know

If I will wake up 

In the morning