Everywhere, the world lays roads
to endure, to carry, to last.
But in Kerala, my wounded land,
endurance itself is treated as a crime.
Road Builders Malaysia came,
entrusted with a noble task.
They sent Lee See Been,
a man of craft and conscience,
to shape a path through our soil.
He built with care,
forty-five kilometres of strength,
a ribbon of stone and tar
that bore the mark of international standard.
In 2006 it was laid,
and still it stands,
untouched by time,
unbroken by monsoon.
Yet when the first phase was done,
the bills lay buried in silence.
Politicians and bureaucrats
withheld their word,
their signatures locked away.
To keep the schedule,
Lee paid from the company’s purse,
trusting that justice would follow.
But justice never came.
Four phases rose,
and still no payment.
He whispered to his friends:
drastic steps may be needed
if the gates of power remain closed.
The company summoned him home,
demanding he pay from his own pocket.
But his pockets were empty,
his spirit cornered.
No hand reached out,
no voice offered solace.
And so, abandoned,
Lee chose death.
In his final note to his wife,
he named the tormentors:
Kerala’s government,
its bureaucrats,
their harassment,
their cruelty.
He laid the blame,
and laid down his life.
The road unfinished
was handed to a seasoned local,
one who knew the palms to grease,
the shadows to court,
the bills to clear.
But his road cracked within months,
potholes blossomed with the rains,
and danger grew with every mile.
Lives were lost upon that path,
while Lee’s stretch endures,
a monument of integrity,
a testament to what might have been.
This is my land:
corruption rampant,
goodness strangled.
The powerful loot,
the people suffer.
No true development comes—
only wealth for the ruling class
and their cronies.
I cry for Kerala,
for the hell it becomes,
for the honest who are murdered
not by blade,
but by betrayal.
I mourn Lee See Been,
and all who shared his fate.
I pray their families find strength
to bear the weight of loss.
Kerala, they call you God’s own country.
But devils sit upon your throne.
If only the corrupt could be brought to justice,
if only truth could rise again,
then perhaps there is hope—
a hope as enduring
as the road Lee built.
