WATER DROP: a sonnet--award winner

WATER DROP

Some people are so deprived of water,
Others wallow in private swimming pools.
This will in future cause the wars, rather
Than oil, so tell the economics rules.

Drinking water is scarce in many states.
But Rajasthan suffers the maximum.
Rural people rue their so tragic fates.
Dry wells are causing much social mayhem.

Men and women, the old and the young ones
Look to the skies, guessing the rain-god’s plan.
What can be done to cool the parching tongues
In desert ridden Western Rajasthan?

For suffering in villages to stop,
Urbanites must save every water drop.


* Motivation for writing this was the first hand experience of acute water shortage in the Indian desert state of Rajasthan, especially its Western part, where the author spent six weeks as a consultant in an international water project aimed at addressing the water scarcity problem.

*Awarded Honorable Mention prize in "The Elementalist Contest" , The Elementalist Contest, First round, December 2008, organised by LdyPhoenix .


M C Gupta
28 March 2005