RASH DRIVING (A calf and a little girl)

A calf and a little girl were talking

Of something that didn't seem shocking.

They were resting in heavenly gardens.

Thanks to someone's rash driving.

The girl said,"Who split your legs and belly?

People call you an animal that's holy.

You might have been cut in a slaughterhouse.

People fight over you. Isn't it a glory?"

"Oh! Don't think that my life was sorted.

To me, people on Earth seemed horrid.

Though they have a religious love for me,

None fought the driver who left me distorted.

Out of a hundred people, a few were kind-hearted.

But most of them wanted things to get disconcerted.

At the slaughterhouse, I was sure to be cut someday.

But suffering on road was more brutal.",the calf retorted.

The girl felt sympathy for the poor animal.

However, her own story was quite identical.

She too perished in a harsh road accident.

In the burning school bus was her funeral.

She said," The day I died was the exam day.

At home, away from school, I wanted to stay.

I prayed to God to keep me away from exams.

Maybe that morning I was my prayer's prey.

The driver seemed strange and his voice slurred.

Maybe due to rains, his driving got absurd.

In a hurry, he ran into a tanker carrying petrol.

How come his vision got so blurred?

The bystanders filmed the whole commotion.

Even media came for the coverage of the situation.

Police, school and parents were also informed.

Alas! None cared for our quick hospitalisation.

There were a few peers who got rescued.

Most of our lives liveliness simply subdued.

Rash driving kills lives on a daily basis.

You and I are just two.", she said in a sad mood.

Being a humble creature the calf said,

"We both are joined by the same thread.

Death may have approached us differently.

But now, in the end, we both are dead."

The girl said,"Dear calf, you speak appropriately.

You were killed on the road brutally

While my life ended inside the bus.

It was simply rash-driving that killed both of us."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------©Radhika Gupta(July14,2018)