The Puny World -- A Poem By Ramesh Iyengar
The petty shop beside my house facing the north,
provides numerous home materials.
Rice, pulses, spices, tamarind,
oil, jaggery, sugar, tooth powder,
A week- old vegetables.
One thousand odd items buried in bottles.
Tiny, saccharin sweets in all hues
( a year old or more)
greasy, shiny and mellow
sold to kids who gaze at them,
with wide open eyes,
saliva dripping down the lips,
in a long stream.
The semi-bald shop keeper
in his stained dirty lungi,
and torn banian
unclean, unbathed, unshaved
selling salt and soap
camphor and cashew
to an odd little crowd,
credit sales to women neighbours,
till the cashbox jingled with
hundreds of coins.
He yawns in the afternoons,
fans his barebody with palmyrah leaf,
listens to radio songs,
on a hot Madrasi noon,
reading old magazines.
His world of business,
currencies, fives and tens
of rural innocence,
unseen by Delhi Finance Ministry
or experts of IMF office.
The little, puny world of petty shop !
Ah ! My neighbour !
Glossary :
hues --- colours
gaze ---- fix the eyes in a steady look
lungi ---- waist cloth, loin cloth usually multi-
coloured
palmyrah ---- tropical trees, black in colour
IMF ---- International Monetary Fund
puny ---- small
Ramesh Iyengar
