Arranged Marriage: the old fashioned way

He went there with his five aunts

and three brothers-in-law.

The banarasi-clad aunts spoke a lot,

the co-brothers a little

and the groom not at all.

He sat almost broodingly,

the branch manager of a sarkari bank,

with your average Indian moustaches.

Kachoris  with tangy tamarind chutney

from back-street Natthu halwai served,

whose laurels  along  with bhua’s 

cross-stitched table cloth 

shamelessly ascribed to the bride.

The aunts nodded approval when she

brought forth the tea tray,

with bowed head and bashful eyes,

 tutored by her omniscient mausi.

Gulping down the elaichi tea

and eyeing her surreptitiously,

the groom quickly noticed her

besan-cured complexion;

her long snaky braid, pliant

 yet promisingly passionate.

No questions were ever asked

about bride’s aspirations.

Topic of dowry hushed up but

Traditions were to be respected.

Leave taking now, the groom afforded

a lingering glance on his bride-to-be,

definitely not lost on chuckling aunts

and the beaming parents of the bride.

Honour Killing

The sun bled red at the horror

and the footfalls of human night

when he hacked his only daughter

into nineteen pieces, a gift

for each spring she enjoyed on

the courtyard swing enrapturing

the family with her glee and picking up

yellow and pink wildflowers to weave

them in to her ecstatic pigtails...H
-Neha Bansal

The Witch Hunt

When they paraded her naked,

jeering at her, condemning her to be the "dayan"

her ancient breasts on her wrinkled body

were wounded by the stones pelted.

Her stoic eyes surveyed the scene

refusing to shed a single tear,

rested for a flickering moment on me

and i averted mine in cowardice.

Refusing to acknowledge those years of affection,

she showered on her neighbor's children.

Denying the tangy taste of raw mango candy

that she hid in our pockets magically

and wearing of those hibiscus and frangipani flowers

with which she tidied our unruly hair.

Abnegating those myriad times when her timely interruption

saved us from our mothers' beatings

and also forgetting her "knowing teasing" look as

I eyed, courted and eventually married her only niece.

And I let them burn her at stake

for the sickness of village children

and deaths of three cows and one half-blind dog,

knowing well it to be the pretext

to grab her half an acre land.

- Neha Bansal

pawns

No, I am not Scheherazade,

nor was meant to be,
and i don't know a thousand stories
that would salvage me.

He would certainly behead me tomorrow,

a promise sealed with kiss.

The dawn would soon break

and end the briefest bliss.

The hunter would prey again,

renew his vows in confetti shower,

and i enslaved to an indifferent him,

would pray for his heightened power.

I want her to suffer my fate

No, she must not win him over.

No, this bloody rite must never end

and he must find a newer lover...
- Neha Bansal

devi

It was Chaitra Ashtami..

and he called the little goddesses home,

washed their feet, served them meals

and considered himself lucky

on accomplishing yet again the biannual feat.

He praised Durga and on sandal rosary beads

chanted her hundred and eight names.

While she dreaded the coming days,

singing lullaby to her never-to-be-born 'Devi'
- Neha Bansal

in praise of the resilience shown by afgani women : a poem

Do you remember all those wounds on her body and soul?

when she was pulverised like bamiyan buddhas never to again become whole;

incarcerated in veil, with a merciful one-way window to the world,

silence was rammed down the throat of the singing bird.

denied all laughter, hope, song and even the fresh air,

she was expected to deliver, in dark rooms, the male heir.

her face corrupts, they explained, her footstep excites,

shaming her for the raging lust that within them fights.

her thumbs chopped off to teach the lesson to painted nails,

kicked in flank and shin, for venturing out, unchaperoned by males.

when her flight was cut short midway, with Kalashnikov's aid,

who could have thought that of much stronger stuff than bamiyan stones she was made

that not only she, in all fortitude, survived the night,

but rose from her incinerated self to make her nation see the light

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