requiem for womanhood

Requiem for Womanhood

Standing awed beneath the grand and silent marble domes,

Raped of bejewelled adornments by the British Raj

Dwarfed by one man’s testimony to the power and

The majesty of love and masculine might

The story of legend, the mystical, mythical Taj Mahal

Soars silhouetted against the azure sky

Swooping, seeking, swirling the pariah kites fly

And the soft footfalls of generations of women,

Beat like battered butterfly wings in flight

They call for freedom within the confines of my mind

Their blood runs through history, shed by society

Woman’s fate always by men to be possessed

By history, circumstance and culture oppressed

This most exquisite monument so aptly also a tomb

Hopes and fears of womanhood for eternity interred

All lie uneasily within the Taj’s icy marble womb

The crackle and kiss of fire stirs the leaves of time

Blood drenches the corridors of memory

Shed by those honoured with the red bindi

Thrown on the funeral bier like a rag doll

In locked rooms, dripping kerosene, women stand

Waiting for the conflagration, sacrificed to war

Offerings of men, waiting for their doom

Even today the girl steps out her parent’s door

Property of the groom, part of her family no more

The Taj, that exquisite monument to romance,

Holds all these truths within her heart and triumphs above

The pain, the sorrow, the endless bloodstained tears

Mute testimony to the power of womanhood

A most beautiful and enduring testament to love

She enslaves your heart and haunts you down the years.