Sajan's Sorrows

Sajan’s Sorrows

His hopes take off like an Indian
Airlines aircraft.

It’s a shelter – from the hundred
degrees Celsius
issues – that Sajan seeks in the
Dubai Desert.
Days are dry like the ‘kuboos’ in
the labor camp.
Here laborers live to labor – never
labor to live.
His fallen hairs on the bathroom
floor scare him –
he fears a marble pate.

Fresh date bunches can’t tempt
him. Alluring
fragrance of the herbal oil – from
his wife’s hair
sea miles away – passes through
his nostrils again.

As he lies in his bed, his distant
babe’s babbling
detains his sleep awhile.

His alter egos are all around. An
expat is like a
tap-root – going so deep under the
dry sand for the
green leaves and the bright blooms
beyond the sea.

*Kuboos – an Arabian flat bread.

Originally published in Literary The Hatchet, issue#12
by the Pear Tree Press, US.