A Sad Fable.

14 – APR – 2007

Oh! My house is thronged by multitudes of pest:
Arachnids, flies, roaches, even ants do infest.
They come here, they go there, they scramble:
Some fly about and run around or amble.
Do they know they are trespassing my lair?
Which by every written law is foul and unfair!

Even so, I have been a friendly neighbour,
Never undermining others’ hard labour.
Thus arachnids have been given a free hand
To build their ‘hanging gardens’ on my land.
Bees are also welcomed to make their hives,
And like them wasps nurture nascent lives.

A generous provider for many such guests,
I graciously hand food to poor wretched pests.
Ants take some sugar and grains go to mice.
Wood is for termites and weevils feast on rice.

I give them all they need, I ask for naught.
Yet they declare in lucid signs: ‘war do we sought!’
Ant infantry nip me, making me shift my base,
Bee squadrons attack then, stinging all over my face!
Bugs start camouflaged wars: hidden in bed they’d fight.
Mosquito are kept reserved but, to keep me awake at night!

Though I was one of warrior race, yet I began to lose,
How could I fight militancy? And they rejected all truce!
How could I kill them but: Was I not their father?
I fed, loved and liked them: providing them my larder!
And yet like errant children, in need of strict conduct,
These insects plague me thus, so I shall harshly act!

Put in this story ‘Neighbours’, in place of insects,
And you shall know truly enough who are the real ‘Pests’.
And ‘I’ here means us: we the people, the nation!
Who are providing our own banes their daily ration!

Do stop O benevolent! Don’t ye give them a hand!
Lest they grow such numbers to stake claim on our land!