Dr Alka Jain

Uttar Pradesh, India.

The author is an Assistant Professor and writes poems, short stories and articles in three languages. Till date she has published more than

40 Hindi and English poems and written articles for National Newspapers in India. She writes on social and environmental issues and believes that writing must serve a social purpose. Her poem migration speaks about the labourers and migrators who are travellers sans choice.

The poem was written on 24th August, 2020

A Traveller Sans Choice- The Migrant

For me, the unwilling traveller,

Dragging myself barefoot to hostile lands,

Where the sky is not an inviting host

To unwanted, insane, incapable disbands.

            The sun as haggard as the sunburnt traveller, furiously glares,

            Pelting scorch and steam, nature’s misgivings to share.

No tryst with bounties, or meetings with wealth,

No streams of pleasure, just winds of stealth.

No rising mountains- to honour my breath,

A migrant not needed, in life or death,

            I am a wart on rugged bodies, a clot of soiled blood.

            Thwarted, nudged and grudged.

            I trudged. Trudged. Trudged.

Born out of nowhere, belonging to none.

I swarm the streets- in thousands. Then Done.

Not a brick for my home, not a bread for this worm!

Not a mortar of love, no cementing, no form.

Do I have a name, a Nation?

Or a trace of indignation?

“No? What release, what salvation!”

Migration. Migration.

            Courtrooms and justice, pacts and deportments.

            Crawling ‘neath sea-beds, crushed in shipments.

“Throw them to sharks, save the vessel!”, that’s all.

Cold dungeons of darkness – the Migrant’s call.