Some Tit-Bits Of My Life In Captivity Poem by Taslima Nasrin

Bathing
Day after day I don't take a bath.
Months roll by, pungent smell wafting out of my body.
Yet, I feel no urge for a bath.
Why should I? What's the use of a bath?
An inexplicable apathy for a bath engulfs me.

Swallowing
A man comes,
Thrice a day,
To offer me food.
It matters little,
If I enjoy it or not,
But I must swallow it.
Were I able to live without eating!
Then I could have said to them:
Give me whatever you intend,
Except the stuff called food.

Sleeping
Before I lull myself to sleep,
I suffer from a constant phobia:
If something devilish befalls me…….
If I fail to wake up again!
If I fall asleep
Startled, I wake up, repeatedly,
As though one suffering from sleep apnea.
I look around to ponder:
Is it my own bed-room?
No this isn't the room I own.

Banishment is merely a nightmare,
It cannot be the part of the verisimilitude.
As long as I'm awake during the daytime
Banishment dwells on me like a nightmare.
Sleep! I take a fright at you,
Lest you should vaporize my dubious reverie.

Movement
The room I inhabit is rectangular
Captivated within its four walls,
I just stalk from one corner to another.
If I'm so zealous to stalk at all;
The order from the top, I must oblige.
The room lies detached from me like a frigid partner,
I, on the other corner, lie prostrated,
By the order from the top.
In stark silence, I wonder:
Is it the same good, old earth,
I knew so vast and generous once?
Since when has it become so parsimonious?

Meeting
Even in the prisons,
They honour some rules,
The permission to meet visitors,
Being one of the impositions.
I'm a prisoner
Compelled to be a non-conformist.
Without friends or relatives.
I send petitions daily
To be favoured like a prisoner,
The Government of India is reticent.