Monday, July 31, 2006

An Ode to the Street Sweepers of Baghdad!

It is only in todays' world that a street sweeper is also considered a dangerous profession. Today morning according to AP, gunmen opened fire on municipal street sweepers in Iraq's capital killing one and injuring two.


Is this not Violence? Who will stand up in the United Nations Assembly or the Security Council for their rights? Are they not humans too? Are their lives not valuable as the lives all over the world?


The world is caught up in a certain conflict predicting the end of the world - the coming of armageddon - no one turns their attention to the street sweeper who lays in a pool of blood on the road. Was he killed because of his religion, his power, his money? Nay! Just his duty to keep the street clean! A dirty job, no else does in a war zone!


Tommorow another sweeper shall come by the same road, queitly sweeping away the rubble and tracing the steps of those who have fallen before him. He fights no war, he does his duty, only to feed his family. Yet when his brethern fall - the world does not care and does not notice ! Only to complain a few days later asking "why is the trash piling up?"


O Sweeper of Baghdad, sweep gently, weep not that the world has forgotton you! We are but mere pawns to be sacrificed in this game of life.


"An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind" - Gandhi

1 comment:

R.G.M said...

hmmm...i like the last two poetic lines. n so true wot Gandhi said. innocents die for the cause of a few. pity, that people still don't learn from this and do something. instead they call it karma, yogam and just move on....move on till when, till one becomes ashes. wots life if one constantly has to live in fear.

(sign) amen to the soul of these sweepers!