Plenitude Yearns


Plenitude Yearns

Ishanika Kashyap

Hot winds blew through the isolation and twirled around him as Kishan looked here and there helplessly, while his foot ached after his long walk. He and his family had barely eaten and drunk since yesterday. Life has always been hard with him but his small cultivation of oilseeds had been a failure this time. His wife and two little children were parched throated and hungry and cursed their misery. As in the past, this time too severe droughts attacked the masses in Rajasthan. Kishan had been brought up with a lot of hardships and difficulties. He had often experienced droughts in his childhood but not as severe as this one. His children looked up to him. Their  empty stomachs and dry throats silently craved for hunger as well as thirst. Tears streamed down Kishan’s face as he pleaded for just a slight sprinkle of rainfall that would save his crops, his family and all the affected people of Rajasthan. 

                     Synchronously, in the far North-Eastern state of Assam, stood Bipin and his family as they watched their only house being swept away by the fast moving currents. It has been raining heavily since the last two days. All his belongings had already gone floating by as his helpless self stood watching everything. Flood has always been a matter of worry and distraught to them. He saw his child’s favourite doll float by and after that followed all the damaged household items they had lived upon for years. But now, the thatched house could no longer restrain the heavy currents and the incessant rains. His now wailing eyes prayed for just a ray of sunshine that would help to clear out the water and thus save his and many others livelihoods.

                      In the North-west there was Kishan who was pleading for a slight sprinkle of rainfall to save his family and concurrently, in the North-East there stood Bipin who desired for just a ray of sunshine to save his family. Both desired what the other had in abundance. But what about the equality in the tears which they shed? Two different persons, two different places, two opposite situations—yet this well-balanced shedded tears. Wondering how glorious it would have been if their well-balanced tears were that imbalanced rainfall that brought hardships to both? Wondering…..still wondering….

 

Ishanika Kashyap. She reads in Class 9 in Maria’s Public School, Birkuchi, Guwahati. She is  interested in creative writing and singing.