Who was the most cruel?

A dead body floating in the Ganges in Varanasi

On a cold wintry morning

I squat on the steps of the Hanuman Ghat

To perform my morning ablutions

Practically filled with spiritual emotions.

As I slowly rinse my body into the frigid waters

A dead body floats alongside, in tatters

It is almost as if it is not the mortal remains that matters

The soul has left it, to mix into the sea in shatters.

A quick gaze at the face of the cadaver

And I was ably to identify the poor weaver

I had met at the Old age orphanage upstream

Just a couple of days ago- it seemed like a dream.

He clearly has died a loner, in life and in death

He was desperately waiting for this moment, with bated breath

He had given up on life long back

But it did seem that even Death had given up on him.

It indeed was excruciating to see him alive

For, he neither had the money or the drive

I wondered how long he would survive

His lonely senility desolation did contrive.

Clearly, for him, the cost of Death 

Was so prohibitive, that he had no choice

But to suffer in mute awakening

And patiently await the day of reckoning

"Cruel", I thought, on what this world had wrought upon him

Cruel- since he had not chance to live a life of bliss

Cruel- since he could not afford to invite the Death Kiss

Cruel- since he had to, for an eternity, await in the abyss. 

Who is the most cruel?

His own simplistic attitude-

That made him squander his lifetime earnings

On the entire bunch of his off springs?

His own vaunted progenies-

Who simply refused take care of him

In the hour he needed them the most?

The sheer apathy of the government-

That lent no helping hand to the weavery

Leaving him in abject penury?

His fair-weather friends-

Who read life like a balance-sheet

And discarded him like a rotten meat?

Were the wintry Himalayas the most cruel-

For it was freezing, but not enough

To make him a victim of the Cold Wave?

Or was it the blistering heat of the Gangetic Plains-

Pan-hot in summer, but not enough

To make him a martyr of the Heat Wave?

Was it the holy water of the Ganga-

The ambrosia for the multitudes before him

But refusing to turn poison and consume him?

Was it Mother Ganga-

Who was gracious enough to accept six other sons

But had refused to take him on her bosoms?

Was it Life- 

That simply refused to let him have any cheers

And lead an honourable life in his twilight years?

Was it Death-

That made him bide his time

When he was desperate in all his mime?

Who was the most cruel?

Who?

❣D❣