Living

They say life is glorious, abundant — an amazing gift of God.

But do they know how damning it is
to keep one’s end up in a world
that grinds out a living
of going to work in the morning,
hoping to return home at night
in one piece without being mugged
or torn apart by wild animals
wearing civilized masks? 

What does it glorify when one
lives in a life-raft tossed by
drudgery, anxiety, perpetual fear,
kept afloat in the sea of crowd
with acquiescence, mute, helpless?

It may sound as a refrain of doomsday
written in brown: the colour of decay.

Yet they say there are oases painted
in green, shimmering afar, beckoning
through the sand haze of the desert. 

Ajit Kumar Das