Uday Prakash: A Subtle Poet

GANDHI JI

 Gandhi ji would preach—

 Non-violence

 and walk around

with a stick in his hands.

THE BUILDING

There is no worker,

but in the building,

the worker’s face is drenched in sweat.

The worker’s face is drenched in sweat,

So, the walls of the building

are damp.

The worker’s body has wounds

festering in various places,

so, the walls of the building

are now full of cracks.

Termites gnaw at the foundations.

The worker is now old,

his bald pate clearly shows,

inside the rooms, the paint is peeling off the walls.

The worker has become quite old,

the building is aging too.

One day, the owner brings the engineer along

to take stock of the building.

The engineer looks around, asking—

‘Where, where, where is the worker?

Call the worker!

The building is shaking badly.’

The engineer screams.

The engineer is unaware

or perhaps he knows

that the building shakes

because three hundred miles away

on an unsteady charpoy,

in the village, the worker,

is coughing.

-- Translated from the Hindi by Roomy Naqvy

'The Building' is haunting. Uday Prakash has skilfully painted a picture of the plight of the worker. It's the butterfly effect with a vengeance. It also shows how helpless professionals higher up in the hierarchy are without workers.

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