Caged

morning starts with a holocaust

or was it last night

that the bird sensed it?

one who came from the farm

where the feed was stale

was willing to die

the life was anyhow wretched, he said

so, a nice human being could consume him

and offer him nirvana

the cage was anyhow worst than

a concentration camp

the horrendous travel to the place of mass murder

was not which anyone saw

while eating a popcorn with the bird’s name on it

there was no preparation,

no time for the last words or wishes

but a colossal fear and anxiety

there was no noose to hang

but brutal strokes of rusty knife

if it is “halal”, it is a slow death

and “jhatka” means the end of the soul

the bird becomes the part of someone

after death

and hence lives on

with the same fear, and same anxiety

caged as ever before,

in the graveyard which is called “human”