The Last Class? -- Sai Varenya

 The Last Class?

(A Lament by Sai Varenya) 

At MCCHE&T we stand, unsure—

PG English, once proud, now obscure.

Will we vanish with tomorrow’s light?

No new names, no future in sight.

Admissions rise—one-fifty strong,

Yet none for us. What went wrong?

The digit zero—India’s own,

A circle of fate we've come to own.

Seven scholars, chalk-stained and wise,

Cast nets beneath indifferent skies.

We hunt like fowlers in morning mist,

Promising dreams we barely exist.

To every child, we plead, persuade,

With crafted words and hopes displayed.

Yet English, once their gentle muse,

Now struggles—few choose, most refuse.

Fees, a wall too high to climb,

Love for words can't match the dime.

Some dream beyond the state's old gate,

To foreign lands, to courses "great."

Is it the age—of one child, maybe two?

Too many options, too much to do?

Or have we failed to make them see

The magic in a metaphor, the power of poetry?

Results we boast—bright, sincere,

Yet no one comes. We live in fear.

What shall we say to Sajith Sir?

That silence filled our register?

Jobs hang thin on hope’s faint thread,

No students—our classrooms dead.

Teachers without pupils fade,

Like sunset’s light, like dreams unmade.

We dial strangers, plead, implore,

Knock on hearts, still closed doors.

Conviction strong, but response weak—

Is English now an antique?

Yet still we teach, still we write,

Still we stand beneath this night.

For even if no voices call,

We are the keepers of the fall.

Let the world forget our name

We lit the spark, we played the game.

And if we fall with empty halls,

We fall as teachers—after all.