“Bloody rats! Curse you! Curse you to your death!”, he shouted in anger.

The rats felt the wrath for a while, as they hid themselves behind the sack but as soon as he quieted, rats began running all over the sack once again, passing in and out of the sack through the several holes they created. He tried his best to fill the gaping holes with more rags, but rats had developed a taste for the rags. Rags were bitten away sooner than they were put to shut the gaps.

It was mid winter and in northern India. Two seasons are considered the worse by the homeless citizens of the country. Mid-winter, when it is chilly enough to freeze anybody to death and mid-summer when heat waves across northern India mercilessly takes uncountable lives. There was a time when such news used to become the head lines of the daily news, but as India prospered and wealth started pouring in, the news agencies started to give more importance to the coverage of political scams, international visits of the various Head of State personnel and sports. Common man was left behind and he learned to live thinking of himself as nothing more than an instrument to be used by political parties once in every five years. Continue reading →