Letter to the editor (Inspired by real life incident )

Dear Editor,

I am a 27 years old young man.

Every morning I pick up your newspaper

And go through every page looking for news

For a right job for my M.Sc. degree.

I am superstitious enough now

To find any reason for not getting a job

And my recent reason for not getting a job

Is the dead men’s pictures on your front page

I hate to see dead man everyday on your front page.

Sometimes the dead faces of Bihari Workers

Somedays the gunned down Kids.

Their faces were crooked

Like a rat under the truck’s wheel

On some highway.

And the color quality of your Newspaper

Make them even worst

Some days back I could recognize a face

He was too like me, jobless

In this land of heartless princes

Many a time I found him

Standing in queue filling forms

We spoke nothing to each other

But we knew we were the victims

Between Academics and Politics.

We knew we know no way to get out of it

We were the sinking suns in their little oysters.

We knew our certificates were all wet by our sweat.

We met even at cobbler’s stall

With our torn naughty boy shoes

We wished we could mend ourselves

With a job confidently

Like the cobbler’s needle

Piercing our seasoned leather boots

Which have survived many shivering summer

And sweating winter.

We were surprised to see the cobbler

Handling his job with his eyes looking, talking at us

Like his hands are scratching his scrotum.

The cobbler was so good at his work

and mended our shoes in two minutes

That we were hesitating to pay him the money he asked

We bargained not to pay him full.

We believed we will handle a job

Someday like the cobbler

With a new pair of leather boots.

But what all I remember of him now

Is only his dead face with the swelling forehead

With one eye out of its place.

That scares me to go around

Looking for job,

That really made me wonder

What had he done to learn the trick

Of the cobbler’s needle

So please find another page to put the dead ones

I hate to see my kind of face as dead ones,

Let me not get weakened by your front page

Even if my breakfast is left-over rice and Black Tea

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully

Akhu Chingangbam.