And he asked,
My son, to me..
Papa, you sleep In a room,
With a TV and an AC!
I nodded and rubbed my eyes
Pretended to feel sleepy,
While removing the tears
From them.
After the call, a sense of gloom overtook me, Sleep evaded me
Oh, my innocent child…
What does he know
Of the life here?
He sees
The gleaming white AC,
But I smell the dry and dusty.
Stuffy air coming from its vents…
He sees
The whitewashed walls of the room in photos I deliberately send,
Cutting off my reckless roommates…
And I see the piles of rubbish at the corners, stinky clothes
Rotting waste in bins, insects seething around them.
He yearns for the perfume bottle I sent him last year.
But I yearn for his Smell and that of his Mother,
The Smell of the kitchen and that of the earth when rain falls
The Smell of Home.
He sees the tall skyscrapers in the photo
A friend took of me…
But I see the lonely Man in this concrete jungle…
In this new land called the Gulf…
He ogles at the Computer in my office,
But I see the shrewd Boss, staring with Hawk eyes,
Never satisfied, never appreciative
Always rude…
Tell me,
What does he know,
Of the life I lead
That of a Pravasi?
Let him not know…
Let him see the good things..
But …
When I am gone..
Let him know my love towards him was unconditional..
It is ok, he needn’t weep
For my conditional Love was always for my Lord…
With this thought, tonight, I will be able to sleep .