Happy Pongal!

a scene near Thirupatur...

Farmers eagerly waiting for customers to buy their Sugarcane.Their Face tells the story....With the new generation more interested in burgers and Pizza's, sugarcane as a Pongal season delicacy is fast becoming history....

Along the Temple wall

A farmer sits all day

With Sugarcane so sweet

Yet, none to buy at all

With sadness in his eye

He looks at every passerby

As If to ponder why

Why none stop to buy?

The festival that he knew

The overflowing pot

The overflowing joy

And a beginning new

are just delusions now

A hopeless holy cow

A future bleak, unsure

With a pointless plough

Times are changing fast

Fresh shoots forget the roots

The meanings that he knew

are figments of the past

The generation of today

Behind burgers, buns & fries

Realize not the bliss

Of Nature’s simple way

 Pongal will remain

Another holiday forever

In memories so sweet

Like his unsold sugarcane

Next year he might have

To a builder sold his land

Then sit by the Temple and laugh

At what we’ll never have…