Home

The Sky Above and The Earth Beneath

What is that we call a home?
Of brick and binding, rods and shingles
In squares and rectangles, that shut us in

Possessive that we get over inches and feet
Its length and breadth
And a few feet in height
Makes us so happy or happy are we

Secure a few thousand acres
We don't settle down but go on
To see if we get at least 500 more.
And in the grind fail to enjoy,
What the happy beggar has
With neither floor nor roof to call his own.

Sit back to think if we were born
To own by inches and centimetres
Chunks of this brown earth
That has come free of cost

Think if the earth were to
In real estate value demand
For all her acres
What if the trees were to ask
a rent for its green canopy,
If your rivers, streams
And oceans billed you
For drinking, swimming or frolicking
Will the pittance you earn
Be enough to settle your debts?

The blue sheet above your head
Turns pink at morn, dips into orange,
Blazes like yellow gold
Metamorphoses into a pale green
And then a glowing red before it
Sleeps into purple black.
What if she asked for vallue added services.

In acres and hectares, there is quantity.
In the vast expanse, it is quality.
In the few square feet, there is vain possession.
In those lands we cannot hold
There is the joy of life for free.
The air that flows through hills and plains,
Over the forests, deserts and oceans
Pass through your tiny windows
But alas, includes no transportation overheads.

The sun works from morn to eve,
Taking rest on cloudy days
Paying electricity bills to the paisa
You don't see he never hikes his tariff.

The snow that piles up on the hills and mountains
Or the dark cool clouds pregnant with water
And just the plain mud pot
Condition our temperature without even peanuts.
And they don't need any CFC, HFCs or Halogens.

Men and women, they buy
In thousands, lakhs and crores.
A piece of land to call their own.
Why can't they see they don't buy
But take from what is there.
And when they leave, they leave behind
What they thought they bought with money
Only to realise even the last square foot is not their own.

Richer is the owner
Who has no belongings
Freely draws from air and water, land and sun
Toils by day and rests by night
Just as the sun, moon and the flowers do.

Instead of taking, he gives
In giving he takes
The joy in return he makes
His only possession
During his brief tenure
Between birth and death.

- Swahilya.