Removing the layers of make-up
I wear to the sets of movies
where I now play sometimes a sister
and sometimes a teary eyed mother
to the same male stars I have danced
with around trees, under the water falls,
gyrating my then thin waist
to the beats of a typical Bollywood song
but a few years ago
I see those half hidden dark spots
and the unwieldly crow's feet that
crinkle the side of my tired eyes
that no longer twinkle as they used to.
-Neha Bansal
(Published in "Mosaic of poetic musings : contemporary women poets from India" edited by Seema Jain and published by Authors press)
