The light green and yellow
Fields of millet
What red crop they hold?
Only lord Ram would know!
I bent down in the farm
to pull out green weeds
mother was around
friends were laughing
When the grass slashed
my thighs
Must be the grass
with an edge as sharp
and quiet as a sickle
Who else could have
cut me alive as I stood?
Why no one was there to see?
Only lord Ram would know!
Came from behind
And strangled me
With a pink strip of the sky
Dark descended into my eyes
stings of scorpions in every pore
Was that the cacti at the edge of the field
that sucked the life out of me?
Why then would the golden fields
stand there and watch in silence
not a sound or a scream?
Only lord Ram would know!
If it were a human, I know,
things would have been different
Perhaps, they would have known
the lowly smell of my caste
Would have smelt and left aside
I guess, this dirty skin of mine
But what difference is a caste
to tigers and wolves
The scent that drives
all animals mad
must be the scent of a woman.
Raw, bitter, young and wild
of all castes and creeds.
Only lord Ram would know!
Or it could have been
A swarm of short-horned
Ravenous desert locusts
descending on that corner of the field
Colours changed
Forms changed
The hunger remained the same
From where did they come
these shameless ones?
Who ravaged and plundered the fields,
the flowers on her lips
the sun in her eyes
her blossoming blue heart
the secrets she didn’t part
and millet coloured seeds
of a dream,
she hid in her fist?
Only lord Ram would know!
Wring her neck
lest she lifts her head
Chop her rebellious tongue
Give her such a wound
between her thighs
she becomes forever numb
Burn her leftover broken bones
bury the grey powdered
memories deep.
But then again
Whose body is afloat
in the middle of green millet fields?
Only lord Ram would know!
