The rickety bus moves through
The green cotton field of black soil
On a long grey rust road
Rattling on the weak strength of the
Agony of the normal task stretched
The quiet dignified towel turban
The wiry dark skin, eyes of mistrust
Strength with no other option
And the vestiges of right and wrong support
The many burdens these hunched shoulders
That hand over the crumpled note
And get down gingerly stop by stop.
Debt and dignity run you dry
Working is your biggest burden.
The final solution is a rope
Doubly sure with fertilizer
You are in cotton country.
You wear a saree.
The nose ring you got when married
Was to carry you through tough times
When it is ripped from your nose
Your saree next, as your helpless ones
See you dragged away to be tied
And abuses hurled, the distance
Stinging worse than the stones they chose
To teach you a lesson.
The solution is tears and endurance
You are in outcast country.
When you get up
Clothe yourself with the last shred of strength left
Pick up your children, wipe their tears
And tell them it’s going to be ok
Ignoring the stone hurt and the indifference
As you go home to the severed rope
The permanent absence of the man you married
And nothing to feed, sell ,make money,
The rusted plough, the empty sack
The seized and failed cotton
Debt and dignity wrung dry
The solution is some water, sleep and tomorrow
You are in a bereft country.
Your wits take you to
The person in a white shirt who watches you
Distaste at your starved condition
and the children on your hip
as he asks you questions
and for proof, which you have none
And no piece of paper from
The Government of the Independant country
Telling you
You are born
You are married
You are a mother
You have rights
You have children
You own the land you till
You feed all of us
You are acknowledged
You will be cared for
As you pick up a pen for the first time
And don’t know how to use it.
The solution is a long line,
Some forms and thumbprints and lots of money
You are in denial country
And when years and years of anger
Pile up into a shrunk body
Flowing into the gruel your children drink
And strapping angry men
Come to urge revolt
What are you revolting against?
Hundreds of years of anger
Of money dignity and strength run dry
And all that is left is an oil lamp
To be replaced by the bribed kerosene lamp of
The portly politician in white
Whose Namaste is the biggest whip
And servility irony
The solution is the intense desire
To turn all to dust and start over
You are in revolution country
It is time to get up.
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