The Fortune(ate)

They spend a small fortune
When they go out for a meal
Buy a painting for thousands
And consider it a steal

Spend money on cocktails
Or perfumes to make the air reek
The cost of their mobile gossip
Would feed someone for a week

The plays that they go to see
Often talk of social ills
While their driver's salary
A third of their liquor bills

Their servant has to beg
For his salary to send his wife
His family in some village
Living in perpetual strife

They turn up their noses
At the beggar at the door
For them a social activist
Is someone who's a "bore"

They waste gallons of water
Washing their new car
Their pedigreed poodles
Outside their homes, the tar

Yet always complain
That their workers do stink
And not for a moment
Do they stop to think

That the maid woke up early
To stand in a long queue
For just one bucket of water
For drinking and cooking her stew

They don't like the slums
For it messes up the view
But without people who live there
What would they do?

The sweeper, maid and mali
All these people live there
And without them doing the chores
Who would the burden bear?

Their conversations often dwell
On the rising crime graph
The inadequacies of servants
And their underpaid staff

They will go to "causes"
Where they can be seen
Talk about how much they paid
So that they could look lean

If only they'd indulged less
And some luxuries do without
There'd be less crime on the streets
And they'd have less to crib about

They are quick to point out
Their wealth is a result of hard work
Could it not be exploitation
Or fortune's incorrigible quirk

For those who really work hard
And often rise from some dark pit
Are sensitive towards suffering
And willing to do their social bit

Those who have little
Are a lot more willing to share
Than those who have plenty
Yet hoard like a greedy bear

Sharing diminished no one
There's nothing they can keep
They all have to leave it behind
When they finally go to sleep

~ Siddharth Sanyal ~

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