Corona

The world got a gift from China

In the year 2019 called corona

They cooed and chirped, cuckoo and mynah

Breathing free with the flora and fauna

When the humans stayed inside homes

Locked down and unable to roam

The roads were silent as a tomb

When industries stopped spewing foam

Good that the virus replaced viral flue

But rendered jobless out of the blue

Migrant workers baffled without a clue

Sans income and desperate they flew

To their homes at least to be near

Their kith and kin torn by intense fear

For their safety when help would be dear

To be together till things would clear

They walked miles as lockdown was total

The path stretched endless in their battle

Unfazed they tottered full of mettle

And lo! To some it was even fatal

They slept on a train track to avoid a snake

What happened is true and news not a fake

A goods train crushed them not its mistake

It was a sleep eternal never to wake

Work from home was the order of the day

Factory workers turned to pottery clay

Domestic help for no work got full pay

For Jack it was no study all play

All educators’ dream came to bloom

When schools taught beyond class room

A universal explosion of digital boom

When group meetings were linked in zoom

Production houses shut shop

For all who idled before a TV non stop

Mega serials came to a full stop

But did anyone see the tear drop

Welling in the artist’s eye

Yearning with a heaving sigh

For a meagre part that could stop his baby’s cry

For a morsel of food, not the mighty sky

Paper degrees lost their charm

When MBA’s turned to till the farm

Road side vendors came to harm

When the roads plunged in eerie calm

The government micromanaged lives

With its multifarious welfare drives

But will this last long unless one strives

To stand on one’s own that one survives

World wars were held at bay

Until corona came to stay

A global war in the play

Let it die is what we pray

Conspiracy theories are afloat

Common man cares not to note

His interest is just an antidote

To contain the virus and devote

To finding soon a vaccine

That would wipe the world clean

Of the virus that had been

Fair in striking mendicant or queen

We all have to wear a mask

Whether to visit a temple or mosque

Or the church thanks to a cask

Showering viruses, indeed an uphill task

Carrying an appendage lifetime

That which connected to crime

Has to be a new paradigm

Of social attire in the pantomime

Of interaction; to wash wipe and again wash

Is an obsession we would like to quash

So that we carry ourselves with Panache

And with aplomb live a life that is posh

If there is life there is death

On the face of mother earth

We all know there is no dearth

Of ways in which we take our last breath

COVID cases and deaths are a daily count

Tracking alarms as the numbers mount

Staying alive though is paramount

Allow not anxiety and fear discount

That life sans quality is a nightmare

They left us contending a bio-warfare

As though not enough they did not spare

Our country’s borders; was it fair?

Had soldiers not rushed to save

Safe from COVID and chosen not to brave

The enemy, one would by now be slave

To alien powers; let us unite therefore and pave

The way for a concerted effort to fight

The crisis at hand and drive the fright

Of death with differential ways bright

That would lead us towards a gleaming light.