Not a Devaki : the story of women in prison forgotten by their families

 I am hardly Devaki,

celebrated for the auspicious

womb that carried the divine. 

But incarcerated in these four 

lime-washed walls, 

fading in the memories 

of the husband who conveniently 

remarried for a motorcycle, 

a sofa set and an air cooler, 

I did give birth to my Kanha 

among the other Devakis 

with no Vasudeva to ferry 

their Kanhas safely out 

to a picturesque Gokula 

where peacock's feathers would 

be woven in their hair. 

Here the only feathers 

are those of the crows,

that sometimes sit on the coping 

of the high parapet walls. 

-Neha Bansal