Yin and Yang

Senseless, But Pride

(An honour killing is the homicide of a member of a family or social group by other members, due to the perpetrators' belief that the victim has brought shame or dishonour upon the family or community. I wrote this poem to portray this very serious issue, which happens in the most remote places in India, which is actually causing to much difference in the male-female sex ratio. Hope you guys like it.)

She was being dragged down the hallway.

She cried, she crumbled, but to her dismay,

Her voices didn’t reach the shadows ears,

She was being punished, for being unholy, unclear.

“Oh, dear paternal figure”, she cried,

“Leave me on my feet,

I’ll never commit another sin, till I’ve died,

Please fall for my words, please retreat.”

She was a girl of high class,

But nor could her class, nor love save her today.

But she, the poor, unholy lass,

She was being punished, for she’d her body given away.

“No, dear daughter, on you, I can’t trust,

Your unholy sins have defeated our pride.

You must be punished, for you are the crust,

On whose doings, our life resides.”

 What was this sin, her undear sin?

You cannot choose, but hear her say-

“It wasn’t me, O mother! It wasn’t my sin,

Which makes you so unhappy and gray.”

By this time, they’d reached the field,

Where the pious flames would devour her body.

The flames, she thought, would fail her to yield,

The promises, she gave to someday.

As the whole village saw her,

Being dragged towards the fiery flames,

She wept as she knew better-

These weren’t just clumsy games.

Why? Why did she ever look at him?

At a man, who was far below her?

Only to make her days much more grim,

Why, why would she only bother?

She remembered at a glimpse,

Of hoe they met in these fields.

His glittering brown eyes

Covered his soul like a shield.

They met each day, every day

Each moment tightening the bond,

To his poor parents and her rich ones dismay,

They grew to each other’s fond.

One day the rich girl’s confidant

Found them together at the stream’s clearness.

It reached the ears of her master at an instant,

But both vowed to face it fearless.

When it reached the ears of the homely court,

Anger flared from her guardians’ eyes,

Why, this low man? Why this hurt?

You shall never see him; never meet him in a million cries.

She promised her guardians to never meet him again,

But secretly called him to her home.

Where they felt pleasure and pain together,

Until they were in one another.

Days rolled into weeks, then months,

But no one found their little secret.

Until one day when her mother found

Him with her in the chamber’s bed.

Rage and filled her guardians

Who kicked him out of the house.

“You wretched snake, you son of a pauper,

How come you sleep with her, you mouse?”

She cried to stop, and prayed to them,

“Leave him, or I’ll never be mild.

For he is the father of my unborn son,

And I, who mother’s his child.”

Fury turned to shock, as she struggled to run.

Her guardians had a reputation at stake.

“You’ll have no daughter or no son,

We have a difficult decision to make.”

They chose their pride, not daughter at that,

As the tradition goes like that-

No rich lass marries a pauper,

Or no rich man a pauper’s lass.

As she returned to her senses,

She felt the fire calling

Her mother wept into her dress,

He father’s neck was mauling.

She was pushed into the fiery flames,

By the same hands which gave her birth.

She was being murdered, for the sake of name,

She was being pushed into the holy hearth.

She shrieked, she cried in pain,

As her baby died before her eyes.

She felt her body failing again.

She thought, it was better, her own demise.

A distance away, from the field,

Stood an old banyan tree,

Behind which, stood the man who yield,

 The promises, which he couldn’t see.

He saw his woman burst into flames,

He closed his eyes and cried-

“Oh! You killed her senseless,

It was senseless, but pride.”

~:ZG:~