Koraput

O Koraput! Koraput we don't care
Where people die like the flies infecting their water.
There are far more important stories
To run throughout the day,
And days on end.

There's one woman who died ten years ago
She had a story we would rather focus on.
She married a man with big ears
Slept with her driver
Or was it her bodyguard?
She dated a shopkeeper's son.
Can't you see how much the news loves her?
That they even chased her to her death.

What did you say?
You have a story too?
Your mother took you to the fields, the night you were born
to strangle your new-born neck
Because you were not a boy
But changed her mind the last minute and named you,
Poonam, after the moonlight?
You could climb the highest trees in your village?
You married a man with big greed?
When Arjun who works in the city
Took off his pants for you behind the banyan trees
You wore them and danced to the latest hits?
As the astrologer said you had death by water?

As the life giving source wreaked ruin in your body
And you lay dying, come on , even you din't think
Of how brutal we were to have denied you
What we drink, three litres a day, to make our skin glow.

Well sorry but we can't harp on this.
The Orissa correspondent needed a boost
In his career
So we did cover the story once
for a whole three minutes.
But apart from that , deal with it
It's something we call fate.
You do understand we have other things to say?
You know Paris Hilton's dog needs a mate!
So you small minded village rooster
Bury your story with your bones, and
Go away from Hell.

(Last week over 170 people died of cholera, caused by unclean drinking water in the Koraput district of Orissa)