I bought
white lilies
your favourite
flowers
and I spent
two hours
to make a
wreath for
your head
smiling at
the thought
of you in a
wedding dress
I made this
wreath for
your head
but I lay
it on your
chest instead
I'm sorry, honey
I've been
quite insane
since your
death

I met a boy
in tattered clothes
holding a baby
in his skinny arms
I gave him a
hundred rupee note
Five minutes later
he came running
to me clutching a
packet of milk
"Thank you didi"
he smiled through
broken teeth and
handed me a sum of
ninety rupees.

Aunties and their daughters
pay a fortune to see the hills
burning fuel on roads
carved out of rock
they talk of the crisp mountain breeze
plunked down in AC cars
they point at tea gardens green
through thick sheets of tinted glass
"Look there, a lonely hut
amidst the greens the only hut,
what a lovely place to live!
Dressed in straw, bathed in sunlight,
ringed with only rows of tea.
Mother, I want a house like that,
oh what a lovely place to live!"

Somewhere inside the lonely hut
sat weeping a young lonely girl
cussing at the straw, at the
scathing sunlight and at the
endless rows of tea.
As she plucked leaves warily that noon,
a snake slithered to her feet
but only the trees heard her wail
only the breeze cupped her face.

Even at an age of eighteen
she would not admit
what a lovely place to live!
was her ugly lonely hut.