In its baleful flames,
Acres of harvested paddy-land,
Where heaps of hay,
Stood in amorphous pyramids,
Over the stubble;
Wreaths of thick black smoke
Lazily spiraling up
Formed an unnatural mist
Over the entire milieu,
While the unmistakable odour,
Of burning hay,
Hung thick on the wind,
Fanning the fire’s fury……
Dismal news about a singed snake,
Dying a slow, painful death,
Was spread faster than the fire itself,
When it was beginning,
To be extinguished,
By the same wind that’d been stoking it.
We, the curious villagers,
Stood in a semi-circle,
Around the burnt cobra,
Squirming and writhing,
With deep, inexplicable pain,
And watched the pitiable plight,
Of the dying serpent,
‘It’s beyond cure now!’, declared,
One mature peasant.
As the fault-finding women-folk among us, the watchers,
Attributed the snake’s pitiful plight
In sibilant whispers,
To its karma in a previous life,
A more practical, kinder man,
Hit the dying snake on the head,
Much to the disgust,
Of the false, hollow-hearted sympathizers,
Who exclaimed in unison, ‘Ayyo!’
‘I did what I thought was right!’,
Answered back the remorseless hitter,
Before going to fetch some kerosene,
To incinerate the carcass……
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