The Elemental Truth

It took a woman...
it took a film maker...
it took a different backdrop...
it took a neighbouring location...
to spell out the elemental truth!

Water- a movie that depicted the plight of the widows in our holy land...

Sitting in my cosy hostel room, i saw it, i let my heart weep and my thoughts ponder...
It took me back to my seventh standard at school when i read about atrocities on women and the role of Raja Ram mohan Roy and Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar...in moulding that painful history...
Out came those yellow pages with the poem i had written then...

A Great deed Of Bringing up The Widows.

Whenever the painful faces of the widows come in front of my eyes;

The only thing that comes to my mind is-

Is this what India inplies?

Wrists who can never wear colourful glass bangles,

nor can the ear be proud of the jhumka that tangles.

The hair that is deprived of the jasmine garland,

the forehead that is in hide behind the ghunghta;

and without the red tide.

The body that is wrapped in white;

deprived of the coulourful robes of a bride.

If this is what India implies...

If this is what we give the brides

after their husband lies on the pyre.

Then, not far has India progressed from the time it was harassed under the British.

Why is everything gone with their husband?

Their joys, their happiness, their shringar, their importance.

Let's give them a life, a new one.

even after their husband is not with them.

Let's give them a ray of hope, a moral to live.

let's give them a hand, pull them out of the ditch.

Let's tell them , they are the ones we also need.

Let's do this great deed of bringing up the widows.

and showing them in their room of depression;

a small window, a new impression;

which brings them the ray of hope

The ray of hope that lasts ever, forever, everafter.