Middle Class

 
From the other side of the door I heard that sharp voice.
'I already told you—we don't need anything! Rice, lentils, oil, salt... nothing at all! Why have you come here? Go away, go away! Are we beggars? Leave this place.'
Uncle didn't open the door. He wasn't supposed to. I already knew.


Ah, the middle class! Ah, the middle class!
They'd rather die hungry than extend a hand.
No pot on the stove, no rice in the house, no money in pockets,
yet self-respect remains honorably intact!
Children, a disabled wife—they go without eating, or maybe had a half-meal... that one time.
Still they keep us outside their door...
They're used to keeping us outside their door!


The boy can't go to his job,
the girl's tutoring has stopped.
None of them have been paid.
Uncle is ill, stays home, and burns away in his sense of self-worth!
Not everyone looks at fellow humans as human beings,
...how many are there who pay wages even when there's no work?
Uncle's children haven't received their pay, they've only inherited—a failed father's futile sense of honor!
Yet the maid from that very household has been given
a month's advance, plus extra money, and sent on leave!


They're trapped at home, they're on holiday now.
Hunger takes no holiday, the stomach knows no lockdown.
In this world, self-respect takes no intermission—
the bastard who doesn't have it simply doesn't,
and the bastard who does, even his funeral pyre burns on the wood of honor!
Why COVID-19 couldn't devour this middle-class self-respect by now,
to answer that you'd have to search the world's history, know life's chronicles.


They want, like before, to eat their fill at least once a day.
A bowl of lentils, half a fried egg, a little vegetable. Even that much would do.
Yet in this house of ravenous hunger there isn't even three thousand rupees!


The landlord forgave the rent, so Uncle had to hear words from him too... "Brother, how will you manage this month? Take the rent, I won't have a problem."
The landlord wiped his eyes, folded his hands, smiled and said... "Brother, I'll take the money, shall I take it a little later?"
...and quickly walked away, ignoring these words that followed—"Strange! Why won't you take it? Why won't you take it, Brother?"
Our Uncle stood there, gazing silently in the direction the landlord had gone... Ah, life! Ah, life!


That day I heard my father's voice in Uncle's voice.
I know how much weeping you have to swallow with helpless eyes to speak in such a voice.
I discovered my former self in Uncle's young son,
and in the daughter, my own beloved little sister.
These people chew and swallow even hunger with a smile,
yet they won't eat anyone's charity, won't consume their own dignity.
They were born to live with heads held high... until death!


It felt like my father was turning me away from the door of home...
I returned. Before leaving, in that grand temple of infinite wealth I left some trifling offerings!
At father's feet, a child's most modest tribute!


A life can pass quite well even quarreling with God!
I felt, in this quiet corner of the world, this eternal quarrel...
might as well grow a little more!
Let it grow. What's to worry! Uncle knows how to quarrel too, and so do I—
for I am the child of that same middle-class Uncle!