Arunabh Sourabh
I see fathomless dreams
shining in the eyes of thousands of children
who rise earlier and march to their schools
with their bookbags.
No child knows
that anytime, anywhere and by anyone
they may be killed
and after that
one may find
their heads, their feet, their hands
their eyes, their kidneys, their lungs
their levers
thrown anywhere.
Someone said
a child lifted from a school in Darbhanga
was seen begging in a train in Silliguri
a child kidnapped from Madhubani
was sexually abused in Delhi
by an old tycoon
a corpse of a lost little child from Begusarai
was spotted, devoid of kidneys, in Mumbai
a male baby stolen away from Madhepura
attacked a school in Peshawar
a lost child from the Sepoy Tola of Purnea
joined a sex racket in Chandigarh
a ‘dear boy ‘ lost from Saharasa
dealt in smack and heroin in Goa.
From Kashmir to Kanyakumari
from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea
from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean
in Gujrat, in Assam
in Lebanon, in Syria
in Palestine, in Israel
in Ukraine, in Tibet
in Iraq, in Afghanistan
in America, in England
and in the entire world
child-lifting has become an easy feat.
[Translated from Maithili into English by Ayodhyanath Choudhary]