Momentary
Free verse — It’s Complicated: Lit Up & The Writing Cooperative Contest
she’s planting rice,
hands flowing in an intricate dance,
bent like a hairpin,
sari hitched up to her knees,
showing off shapely calves
dusted with mud,
when Fate sends a spear of pain
down her curved back.
she straightens, stretches,
and her glance is caught and held
by his Cupid-wounded gaze.
a resonance thrums
between them,
muscles tense involuntarily
as the world falls away,
and instantly they are
in each other’s arms,
enveloped in
love’s beneficent glow
a tug on her sari
breaks the mirage,
her eyes meet her friend’s,
wide in fear,
a mute plea hidden
in the sharp negation of her head
instinctive rebellion
blooms for an instant,
as the memory of his touch
threatens to engulf her.
Her friend whispers, Remember,
and she sees —
the broken bodies of the last couple
who had dared to believe that
love trumped caste;
the eerie, ashamed silence
pervading the separate funerals;
the anger and relief and stubborn sorrow
clashing on the parents’ faces;
the ashes dissipated in different streams,
so that even in death,
they would be
decorously separated;
cold sweat blooms on every inch
as she sees the road Fate would set her on,
fear devours her ardour,
redirects her eyes back to work
he sees fear stiffen her limbs,
divining the cause, he sighs,
these dreams will only spill blood,
he walks away,
a vague emptiness throbbing in his heart
she watches him leave,
from the corner of her eye,
terrified and yearning,
until he’s lost to sight
that night,
as the world constricts
to the safe space
between her mat and blanket,
she imagines a world
where she didn’t break his gaze,
where she freed herself to love,
as she drifts off, she wonders —
if she had the temerity of the dead couple,
would her mother grace her
with at least a hidden ululation…
Note: Wailing or ululation is common in funerals in some Indian communities.
Honour killings, especially for people who marry someone not in their own caste (or sub-caste, or sub-sub-caste), happen with a depressing frequency in India.
