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Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts
Showing posts with label suffering. Show all posts

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Hopeful

The Indian woman is taught to be submissive and also that her husband is her owner who can resort to violence when it pleases him. Physical and mental torture are a part and parcel of her life. The hope and the longing to live for her children is what keeps her going. Life around me and the women whose stories have touched my heart, is the basis of this poem.




She is ensnared in a web of restrain
More the mêlée more the constrain.
It is a design that destines to detain
Grit and mush looking alike at times.
Stifling her soul with wires of barbs

She slips often into tormented thought
The token taunts, the snide remarks
The unbroken blitz of foul words
The accusing tone in harsh judgment
Was she all that he said she was?

And often she is greatly astounded
Uttered words and simple actions
Pretty easily turned and twisted
Made out to seem so evil and ruthless
Does she appear as nasty a person?

Her every move intently studied
Under a microscope pinned and sliced
Her every step judged and weighed
She the reason he feels like a worm?
She the cause for all his emotions?

It is so amazing she is still sane
And able to smile even through pain
A charade made easier to sustain
Topmost on her mind children and duty
What when they have a life of their own?

She wondered if she could ever manage
On her own after a long lived marriage.
Stepping out would be a huge stride
The world beyond so new and untried
Should she rather stay on to endure?

Her belief in herself is ever present
Reinforced with every moment of slight
Unable to breach that wall of strength
Never being able to crush that spirit
Is this what challenges him to bits?

She will go on till it gets too grim
Her patient strength under no thumb
No plots of suicide or settling scores
Little joys of life her vim and vigour
Her heart fills with hope and a future.

© Nalini Hebbar/openmind/2009 - all rights reserved
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