Sunday, October 25, 2015

That Fair Lady

Book available from www.megabooks.com or on Kindle 
That Fair Lady
Written by Sudhir Saxena
Translated from Hindi by Om Bharati

That one fair lady in the Cape in the black night
Keeps awake
Keeps awake all the night
So that her children may sleep in tranquillity
No demons to infiltrate their light blue dreams

In the world of children, steps in the fair lady
That her entry in the world of children
Is prohibition of invasion and interference
Of ill-intentions and wickedness.

Day and night, the white woman
Is showered with accusation
That in the lap of white woman
Not one, not two, not ten
Seventy offspring.
On the wall of the hermitage of the white woman
Spit with scorn, a thousand orangutans
You the bitch, we will shoot you
Cries the crowd of rapists.
Sometimes with the hem of her gown
Sometimes with her palms
Sometimes with her eyelids
The white lady covers up the children.

White lady spans through South Africa
Wrapped up in the invisible cord of the band of children
On the left thigh of the fair lady is a black
On the right – a white
And a swarthy dusky child wipes his nose
With the sleeves of her wheat-coloured blouse.

White lady rushes to London
To get back to the Cape with pockets of pounds
For feeding the children
Returns back almost panting
Lest she is late in reaching the Cape.

Now and then in her arms
When unlucky, abused children hiccup
She herself dies yet again
Time and time, in her own arms.

That white woman yearns for bathing the black night
With the day light
To make it as bright - As bright as her love for Mandela’s children. 

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