We, the voice of the most oppressed,
Work in the profession remaining the most humble,
Throughout histories, as slaves our lives still remain tumble,
With our strangled necks, we are deliberately suppressed
For the centuries, our voices remain unheard,
Like a weeping fish at the sea,
We are treated zombies at the rush of a blood,
Collecting by hand, the human society’s poops & pea
Things for us got intensely worse,
We work as a group with an isolated curse,
For our livelihood, go into manholes as bare-bodies
Mostly get out as dead-bodies
From pathology to oncology,
We are treated untouchables, even by the modern technology
We are the oxygen-offering trees that remain green
Hurting ourselves, collecting excreta making this world neat &clean
With our hand-cuffs we shout and fight,
Rulers remain drunken-deafs to our plight,
Hell with your knowledge, to those who go to college
And keep pushing us to the drainage,
We remain living dead and frustrated, to get our right
When asked about work, we remain dumb and blind,
Fearing the responses to our ***** revelations,
Because humans are unemphathetic and unkind
To get our life some elevations.
Our mind said us “Please think! Please Think!”
When we revolt not to work, societies stink,
We warn, Witness your locality *****,
To our sufferings, if you keep blank & empty.
We are a collective voice,
Representing inhuman humanity,
That keeps the society on a poise,
So raise your voice, with a clarity of choice
To get us work with the utmost dignity!
Manual scavengers is a decent term. People who collect human and animal excreta on bare hands are the manual scavengers. The quality of these people in the south-east Asian countries like India remain pathetic. Their voices are often neglected and ignored by the rulers. They remain struck in a state of vicious circle, where poverty and untouchability keeps chasing them continuously and push them towards this work. This poem is a pain of the masses that had been engaged in manual scavenging for centuries immemorial that continues unlikely, till the present day. Rulers don’t offer the mandatory occupational standards and technological support to the manual scavengers. The motive of this poem is to voice their concerns to help them work peacefully and offer them a dignified life. This poem is written in the style of a ballad.