Women’s Issue Feature Poem By Nabanita Sengupta

Evenings of Transgression

A slice of evening flickers
In the wick of a fading kerosene lamp
Where soot blankets light
Till nothing more is visible.
On a roadside three bodies lie,
Female mass of flesh.
Like crumpled tissues after feasting orgy.

And they say:
Woman is just her body
Mute soul remains hidden in some corner:
Bodies we are,
Since Eve was first duped
Or even Leda by the Swan
Or Kunti, Draupadi, Amba,
Those women of (so-called) divine interference born,
Transgressed, their wills assaulted, existence denied,
Flesh again in the world of gods and demi gods.

The list does not end;
Only Time flies;
Delhi, Kolkata, New York, London
In the mortal world too,
Nameless bodies on roadside cry.

Every evening somewhere,
Soot covers the dying sun
And evening flickers in desperate fear.