Saw a rather disturbing sight today...He was not the usual beggar out to make a fast buck like everyone else...looting and raping this whore of a city again and again...
He was in dirty blackened rags,sitting on his haunches on a muddy wet road busy with the evening rush-hour traffic....And looked down,at the wheels of buses,at the footsteps of passers-by...

His arms were not outstretched,he did not have a begging bowl,he did not beg for people's pity
....this mute lone figure sat,bent low amid the swirl of humanity eager to get back home after the day's end...amid the noise and the din,amid the eager excitement of faces....

For him the sun never rises,the dew never falls,the day never begins,...birds don't call at dusk,buds don't bloom into flowers....revolutions do not happen,protest marches do not take place,no bandhs,no dharnas.....For him there's no anger,no frustration,no outrage or outpouring of dismay.....

For him there's only acceptance of his fate and a dying,fading,faint stirrings of a far-away thought.....
Was it like this always?He could not remember.....a flame flickered from the dying embers then died again...

He was Rodin's sculpture,...He was the hairy ape,....He was the dumb spectator to the mad orgy that humans indulge in for their daily living.....

He is the symbol of our shameless,debauched existence....

Progress,you say?Booming economy,you cry out?Second fastest growing nation,you shout out?

What about this lone figure?This depraved diseased symbol of humanity?Have the statistics and figures taken into account his presence on the sidewalks of one of the busiest streets of Kolkata?

I glanced at him only fleetingly ashamed of my curiosity at his nakedness,alarmed at his equanimity and quiet resignation to his lot....

Yet he remains etched in the memory-a sharp line drawn across the mind by that desolate dismal beggar...the scourge of our race....