By Archish Mazumdar
Tell me little girl, how old are you?
I don’t know, Sir. Mother knew perhaps.
Remember the time when the riots felt anew,
People died as if it was the right thing to do.
When the Hindus had their houses torched,
When Muslim blood let flow about,
Mother had had me then they say,
I guess the riot was my birthday.
Tell me little girl, where your father is at?
Mother said, the poor rarely have fathers.
He wasn’t a very good man, they say,
Married still to Mother, one fine morn,
He suddenly decided to go astray.
Took off to another village,
To a new life, if you may,
He has a wife now and kids,
Ignorant of the crimes committed back in the day.
It ruined her, my mother.
She sought asylum in the Lord.
And thus He became my father,
The one you refer to as God.
Tell me little girl, do you have a lover?
Do boys crowd around you akin to bees to a flower?
I don’t know, Sir. Who would you call a lover?
The one whose words charm and sway?
The one who makes you dream through the day?
Brings me bangles and brooches from the fair up ahead,
Strips me naked behind bushes when the night is dead?
That pot-bellied middle-aged uncle of mine has done so a few times, I trust.
I shall call him a lover henceforth Sir, if I must.
Tell me little girl, are you beautiful?
Pretty as a picture Sir, they say.
But isn’t all beauty, just a mirage that the eyes conceive?
Why must I then retribution for it receive?
Men look, and gawk, and grope and stare,
And let their lustful intentions lay bare.
Tell me Sir; is beauty only as deep as the skin?
For then I’m as beautiful as Helen had once been.
Tell me little girl, do you belong to a creed?
Women do not have creeds Sir,
We are only as good as our bodies will allow.
Creeds are but constrictions that society makes,
To be forgotten at their convenience; when the Sun has had set,
There are never questions asked about my beliefs,
All they ever ask is “How much?” and that’s it.
Let me tell you that when bodies lie entwined in bed,
Castes and creeds fail to matter much.
And thus it makes more sense to me,
To call this body my Jesus; and the bed my church.