THE TV. EPISODE

Flashed on screen saw the deathly look

Embedded in her dry parched eyes

As vacantly, unblinkingly she stared into

The eager lens of the cameras bright

Leaning tiredly against the broken door

That hung barely on a broken hinge

Stood she hearing and dismissing

What the genial Mukhiya had to spin

He painted a rosy picture most false

For the frenzied media hungry for scoops

Wanting to be seen as just and progressive

Spinning lies and turning truth into loops

Since eternity bonded labour they had been

One and all of her small village home

Back breaking toil each one of them did

In the seasons ranging far more than four

For all that pain, there was no gain

Only bent double and broken by poverty

To earn a piece of dry roti they endlessly

Work lands that were lost to mafia royalty

If the roof of the tiny hut began to leak

Or the teenage daughter had to be wed

They perforce borrowed yet from another

And sank deeper into the quicksand of debt

What did they care if newer cars flood cities

Or Man sends probes to yonder Mars

Or whether the friendship series was won or lost

For them survival is all that matters by far

It seems on another planet we live from them

Separated by the void of extreme paucity

What is then life all about I wonder

Confronted with so much abounding disparity.

 ~Glowing Embers~