The boy in a blue shirt

The boy in the blue shirt automatically
appears with a cylinder once a month.
‘Thirty-rupee extra,’ the boy flatly asked
while delivering the cylinder.
‘Why? You are a delivery boy.
You are paid by your boss.
Why do I pay you extra?’ I argued.
The boy had a good look at me,
said nothing and parted from my door.
Next month, I made fifty calls to the office in vain,
and the boy did not receive my call for days, for weeks…
My old neighbour calmly said,
‘Don’t worry. Kaloo is a kind of kin to us.
He is our bearer’s friend.
I argued over your valid point.
And he agreed in the end.’
The next day, the boy in the blue shirt again appears,
We exchange genuine pleasantries,
and I offer fifty extra.
‘Six hundred increase in six years per cylinder.
Have I argued with the boy’s boss or the boss of the boy’s boss?’
I argued in bed.
Peace restored, mind relaxed,
and the boy in the blue shirt still serves with a genuine smile.

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Abu Siddik

Abu Siddik

It's all about the unsung , nameless men and women around us. I try to portray them through my tales. I praise their undying suffering and immaculate beauty. And their resilience to life's vicissitudes, oddities, and crudities I admire. They are my soulmates who inspire me to look beyond the visible, the known, the common facade of the educated and the intellectuals.

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Subhash Chandra
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"A gifted writer"

A gifted versetile writer who writes excellent stories and poems on the invisibles, pariahs, margins, aged, weaklings of our society. A rising star on the literary firmament.
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