I came up with these lines during Diwali when I read about a girl being molested. The poem is probably different from anything else I have ever written before, quite explicit. But its about something I feel strongly for.


As a lamp is lit
  She crouches in the corner of the closed room, shuddering
  Her eyes dry, her heart bleeding
  Now its not the darkness she fears, its the human touch
  Why me, she asks the world, why me

As the lantern sways with the gentle breeze
  She, we will name her Asha, for what she has not,stares at the doorway
  The trailing streamers throw eerie shadows
  And she half expects them to come to life, like that afternoon, bruising her, ravaging her
  While she lies motionless, too shocked to scream, too numb to fight back

As the fireworks burst into frenzied showers
  Our Asha is born, sometimes as a nurse in a hospital at Delhi
  Or on that train at Dadar
  Sometimes she is 4 months old
  Or other times she is a shy pig-tailed schoolgirl

As the colours of the rangoli vie for attention
  An innocence is lost forever,
  A girl steps into womanhood, but how, but how
  The body still there, the soul long frozen
  The voice cracked, why me, she questions, why me

As a lamp is lit and the lantern sways with the gentle breeze
  They stalk her while she waits for a bus or for a rickshaw
  Or while she takes a walk in the park or is it the university campus?
  Slowly, stealthily, the demons unleash their fury
  And yet another Asha is born