EVERY DROP COUNTS
The lips of children are parched
India is parched
Water that is part of us
Is still scarce for drinking
Children walk barefoot
Across the desert than India has become
Searching for water
Sadly, unlike camels
The children couldn’t take back gallons of water
Yet they carried vessels filled with water
The children praying earnestly
That their moving bodies
Doesn’t displace the water of their vessels
For it is like blood spilled on a battle field
Every drop counts
The weather so hot and humid
The children no longer have tears or saliva
Alas swallowing saliva had been
The closest to water
Now they were parched
Urban cities have water flowing abundantly
Even wastefully in ‘fountains’ and ‘water slides’
What these children yearn to drink
Is wasted and splashed for fun
For it is only in absence
That the value is known.
Children they are so different
Some blessed with never ending stream of water
Others walking with scorched feet
It is in this time
One must give and support
Learn and preserve what water that is left
While saving water in urban areas
Does not directly equate to water for the parched
It is the saving of water
That will save childhoods from the drought
To take and share
To conserve and relish.
Nandhitha Babuji is a 18-year-old aspiring poet from Tamil Nadu, passionate about using her words to show solidarity against children’s issues.
