Narayan Surve's My Mother

When the stars go off
Tall chimney-sirens sound
Daily with fast steps
Marching to the mill
Who looked backwards
And told us so lovingly
"Do not fight with anyone"
Gave us two pice
On the day before Dasara
She went with five of us
To see the festival
We bantered in the lanes
What a great pleasure
Beyond words
We returned with balloons
And whistles and pipes
We became birds

What happened of one day
They brought her in a cart
Her eyes were open
Blood gushed from her mouth
Her partner saluted
Came near, caressed us and said 'Balu'
We saw mutely everything
We searched our umbrella
Our roof, our mother.

That night we five
Stuck closer and
Wrapped up to the coverlet
Taking it to be mother's affection
Already we had nothing
Now there was even no mother
We awake all night
letting tears
Now we became fully unattached.

About The Poet:
Narayan Gangaram Surve was a Marathi poet from Maharashtra, India.He was born on October 15, 1926. Orphaned or abandoned soon after birth, he grew up in the streets of Mumbai, sleeping on the pavement and earning a meager livelihood by doing odd jobs. He taught himself to read and write, and in 1966 published his first book of poems Majhe Vidyapeeth ( My University). Surve actively worked in the workers' union movement in Mumbai and supported himself as a schoolteacher. In 1998, he received a Padma Shri award from the government of India for excellence in Literature & Education. He died due to old age and after a brief illness on August 16, 2010.
(A Two part Documentary on Surve is here)