Difference

Miles they roamed with foul and uncombed hair, The tattered tunic concealed their frozen flesh , & a bag overloaded with plastic bottles hung On their back stooping them down towards the bare earth. A band of barefoot rag pickers met on the first ray of sun Passing through our narrow streets on whose either side Funnelled out fresh black mud from the open drains cluttered To knock each door for trash in our diagonally bisected colony. Hanging out lone on the roof & watching them roam , Having my head glued on the railing , with an angle of depression , Was my lucky morning pursuit as I loved their being freaky & uncompelled working on their own conditions every new day , Unlike we on our only Sundays which were also compressed by school craft works. Soon they strode past the tallest mosque of our colony , Had they all worn furry red coats and painted their sacks white, They must have looked like a group of Santa Clauses distributing Gifts to children from their magical sacks which they carried with pride. Being lost in dreams when the sun climbed the cloudy ladder of sky , I called out to the striding giftsmen hoping to grab my pre-Christmas gift , But none turned back and again increasing the pitch, I cried aloud when My aunt who clipped my school uniforms on the rope frowned at me , Which reminded that there’s an unfathomable difference of class & colour Between we school-going children and those factory-going counterparts.