Devadasi (Ii) Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

A small daughter
Brought you as a devadasi,
Lured you
And captivated you
The Brahmin priests
Through the middlemen,
The soothsayers, astrologers,
Palmists and fortune-tellers
Which but the parents could not
The conspiracies of theirs,
The intricacies of the system.

Devadasi, return, return you
From where are you
As the temple complex not the place
Of yours,
For a small girl like you,
A little daughter,
What ill you,
What will you in the company
Of the gods and goddesses
Mute and speechless?

The temple, the classical temple,
Grand and magnificent
Not the place of yours,
Lonely and medieval,
The rock-built temple may be it
A specimen of structure,
Architecture superb stupendous
But not the place for you
To house in,
It can never be your abode.

Devadasi, Devadasi,
The way is long and tiresome
And the return journey appears it difficult,
But return, return you back to
Where from have you,
Lured you they from
To be a devadasi
Taking to be it the God's words,
But never did they the gods and goddesses
Ordained it,
Devadasi.

Devadasi, Devadsasi, you not
A temple-serving maid
In the service of gods and goddesses
Keeping company with,
You are not
What they see you as,
Have forecast about and prophesied
Seeing the zodiac circles
And hands,
You are not, are not, Devadasi,
Actually the priests have conspired, conspired.

Devadasi, I can see, i can feel it,
Your heart too beats it,
Beats for,
remembers you the home
Where in the courtyard
You used to play one day
With your smaller brothers and daughters,
With your brothers and daughters,
Devadasi,
Devadasi you, leave the temple complex
And go you unsaid.