WATER DROP: a sonnet--award winner

WATER DROP

Some people are so deprived of water,
Others wallow in private swimming pools.
In future this will cause the wars rather
Than oil, so tell the economics rules.

Drinking water is scarce in Indian states.
But Rajasthan suffers the maximum.
The rural people rue their tragic fates.
Dry wells are causing much social mayhem.

Women and men, the old and the young ones,
They watch the sky guessing the rain god’s plan.
What can be done to cool the parching tongues
In desert ridden Western Rajasthan?

For rural people’s suffering to stop,
The urbanites must save each water drop.



* The motivation for writing this was the first hand experience of acute water shortage in the Indian desert state of Rajasthan, especially its Western part, where the author spent six weeks as a consultant in an international water project aimed at addressing the water scarcity problem.

*Awarded Honorable Mention prize in "The Elementalist Contest" , The Elementalist Contest, First round, December 2008, organised by LdyPhoenix .


M C Gupta
28 March 2005