Mothers Wade to Work
Shatadol Chakraborty
(translated by Farhad Ahmed)

The rains come.
The city’s grand mansions wetted into safe field mice nests.
The silver-robed magician in his air-conditioned lair has never been caught in the rain.
After the meeting, the white car whisks him away to his marble-and-glass palace where water means mineral water, cooler, geyser.
In America when it rains, avenues are not water-logged.
Rows of colorful umbrellas hoist a rainwater fair.
And choruses rise in schools, "Rain, rain, come again.…"
In Third World alleys, rainwaters heave and toss.
Mothers of tiny children wade to work.
Fathers repair shacks, lean-tos, thatch roofs.
The tea stall boy is slapped for breaking a cup—
Yet, it rains, and boys and girls naked frolic in the mud slime with the Gods.

 

Source: The Daily Star. Dhaka, Bangladesh. 28 July 2007, p. 21.