Unending steps, Nirmala embraces her own race
A famished charm hovers cautiously over her face
Her bone structure festered into a trained solitude
Hands a healing force, as her knuckles protrude
Red bold kumkum circle, an effort to distance that lech
Conjugal bliss empties itself into an abundant acidic belch
Saree pleats tucked aside, as she scrubs and furiously cleans
Stubborn tarnished spots, wrestling the numbness in Nirmala’s spleen
Her manuscript written with contradictory life strokes
Confused, Nirmala’s ghungroos silenced by fearful ghouls
Excruciating pain, joyous treasure, intense process of birth
A sense of submission, defiance echoes in her widening girth
An unnecessary ornamental, fact like mangalsutra beads adorn
Strings showing through, her insipid emotions tired and torn
Everything Nirmala has ever felt is a quiet bangle encircling her wrist
The hushed restraint of her space, contradicted by colors that insist
Phantoms, come each night when she curls again into herself
His fantasies break her into tears, tenderness set aside on the shelf
Dreary dawn nudges her awake, she washes, prays, wears resistance again
Collecting a potli of dreams, a composed Nirmala walks into the rain
Defying the grammar of traditional womanhood, impoverished lives
Her daily life embraces tomorrow, today’s hunger submitted to archives
Nirmala’s bio presents strange attributes; observe, listen, resilience
I witness her laughter hesitatingly, jolting trauma into obedience
Repetition nourishes days that hide the broken scars of the night
Finding her truth in rooms, doors and windows, peeping skylights
Questions that face her, are tattooed into the kaajal of her eyes
Wretchedness was a corpse, Nirmala embraced her Kaali in disguise
Kashiana 