The Dark Daughter (A Vi-A-Vis With The Terracotta Sculptures) Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Dark daughter, where to go leaving you,
Your trouble, tear and tribulation
The world came to feel it not,
Your silent sobs and weepings
Which wept you all silently
Near the temple-complex,
Ino the courtyard of it
In being devoted and dedicated to
To the gods and goddesses
Made of stones
Just silent spectators,
Seeing them, reacting it not?

Just in the name of blind faith and reverence,
Classicism and classical dance,
Thye turned you into a nun, a sadhvi
As per the oracle of soothsayers, palmists and fortune-tellers,
Priests and godly ones,
But your days not of worship,
Such a tender age of yours,
This is not the time of your worship
And gods too will not take it
As the temple not the place suitable for you,
As the night not believale,
Is of the drunkards and vagabonds,
You return back to, tretun back to,
But ask you where to go,
As has come to a crossroad,
Stand you thereon?

I see you, dark daughter, brought to the temple complex
In the name of false and fraudulent prophecies,
Which was but a trick of the fake, pseudo-soothsayer
Who lured your childless parents
To give the first issue
And see you, how will you live ehre,
On eint eh company of the worldly priests,
Half-addicts and abnormals,
As the frightful nights often remain laced with
Man-woman realiotions,
Their drunken capers and wishperings of own.

How long will you keep you with cleaning
Gods and goddesses,
Sweeping the courtyard,
Sleeping on the floor
Of your deity house,
Living on alms,
Seelling flowers
And dancing during the late-night
As for the visitors
To welcome with
A Namskaram?

The Vaishnava saints and sadhus will keep you
Rounding the scandals around you,
Yea, the false swamis, sex and their scandals
And you a sevadasi into the hut of the sadhus,
Serving him,
I cannot, cannot accept it,
Let it happen so;
You a deavadasi in the room of the gods,
Seving, bathing and making them eat
Instead of eating and living properly,
You mark it, gods say it not,
First take you then will god,
If have to show, defnitely show you your bhakti.

Your image of a nun, a saffroite nun,
One clad in saffron clothes,
With the kamandala, trishula and the damru
And the rudraksha garlands,
The necklace and the bracelet,
I cannot, cannot approve of;
You a woman,
A woman of kindness,
Live and let live,
Why not let you live?

Sometimes I see you abandonging your worldly life,
Turning into a saint,
Opting for spirituality
And its realization,
Wanting to be delivered from
The bonds,
But where,
Where to go,
The world not a good place
To live in,
Not of the sadhus,
But the bhogis?

Dark daughter, I see you
As an artisan making the temples,
A woman in masonary
Or supportive of,
Losing your womanliness
In heat and dust
And their spates and swirls
And when the temple comes up,
Forget they,
As these to house gods and goddesses in,
Not for you to dwell in;
Dark mdaughter, are you a nautch girl replica
Turned into stone
Or a clay-baked red sculpture
Welcoming the visiotors
At the temple-entrance?