The Avenging Anklets

So sometimes, the past has the answers, at least the written word. In a way, that's a comfort not trying to find newer ways to express unbelievable pain. It's so much better when the words you find are your own.

Dear reader, for the first time ever, a snippet from Blue Funk (2004), my completed work. LOL.

And this is for you, BailyS, though it was written for another man against whom the curse was never uttered.
And so the moral of the story that took two years and was titled Givenchy and Irresistible Lies?


The Avenging Anklets
(a snippet from Blue Funk)

I saw a town reflected
In the smoke
Of my burning heart
The towers of the palace stood
Tall and proud and forbidding
And prosperity shone
From every nook and corner
The fields rustled
Green and inviting
And the brook flowed
Languid and rippling
I remembered old texts
Forgotten and gathering dust
The scriptures quoted:
Yathya Naryanthe Pujyathe
Ramanthe Thatva Devatha
The Gods reside where women
Are respected, if not worshipped.
I reflected upon this and laughed
It was tinged with hysteria
That sound of happiness.

What happened to the world now?

What does a woman mean,
In your dictionary, in your life?
Object of affection, lust,
And sometimes love,
You’ve equalled her to dust.
No fury like a woman scorned
Your letters quoted
But I,
I was not only scorned,
More burned and tortured,
With me it was the rape of the mind.
You played with my emotions,
Your actions scorned all my devotions.
I lost my faith – as you reverted to yours
My broken heart became the foundation that mended yours.
Families forged new relationships
As I stood ostracised from all that was mine by virtue of my love.
I flowed trustingly into your hands
Like the sea does into a land.
And you? What did you do?
Ah! The cruelty meted out to me.
What do you call a woman like me?
The fallen one or a victim of fate
Simply because I chose
You for my mate.
My plight doesn’t it remind you
Of some one long ago?
A woman forgotten, a woman victimised,
Like many before and after her
In various degrees and for different reasons,
Who are christened many names.

Kannagi, O Kannagi – a burnt town shuddered,
Don’t drop your anklet
Let your curse remain unuttered.
Let the men fool around,
Let the women get thrown about.

But my pain desires to prosper
The passion has a potency all its own
The power of a woman
It cries to be known.
The dark despair within
The humiliation hangs the head
The stomach churns for revenge
On you and your land
For making me barren
For making me as sand.
Let the flames then act as water
To put out the fire within my soul.
Let the men not fool around,
Let the woman not get thrown about.

Kannagi, O Kannagi, I whispered,
Do I drop the anklet?
Do I curse his world?

The smoke is reality now
The towers – they have fallen
The grass – it is brittle
The brook – it flows dry
The tempests rage on your sea
As decadence cries at corners,
The curse is uttered
And like her,
Like Kannagi,
I have dropped my anklet too.