Kya kahna (What to tell)

She was as innocent as water

And fell in love with a romantic hero.

He won one more feather to his cap.

She lost her only feather to his trap.

He is a hunter. She is a hunted.

What mercy could exude from a hunter?

A Viswamithra he became. A thrown

Out Meneka, she stood resolute.

She wanted not to eat a humble pie.

She wanted not to emulate Kunti.

She wanted to retain her motherhood.

Against all the law and all the ethics.

A monument her child might come,

That would humble him to fall at her feet,

Which she wanted, and rejected outright

To marry the former lover she shunned.

Murder not the motherhood

If moral or immoral.

Reject not the beloved

If a virgin or a victim.

Then would rebound the motherhood.

Then refined would be the beloved

[an abstract of a Hindi movie]

04.09.2000