Kali Came Along

 

She walked along with me, rising straight from the cremation grounds,

That night she made a friend of forever with another orphaned daughter,

Her lips have remained still, never uttered a word of despair,

Kali thought she had found a home, she didn’t know it was never a home,

Merely a place where daughters were forgotten forever,

The mansion was huge, hearts weren’t, Kali too couldn’t find a place,

In that room anymore where one daughter disappeared in a fortnight,

The old rickety puppets of the kings and queens made too much noise,

With their incessant clamour and rings of bell that didn’t soothe Kali’s ears anymore,

She was waiting to leave this wobbly palace sitting over the chest of old relatives,

Coming like locusts, eating out the brains of few good people remaining,

Turning them into walking corpses with lesser brains and more irk for daughters of blood,

Bellow, bellow and bellow they all did for months, days and weeks of each year,

The cables too swelled up of carrying much hateful words in the air for long,

Telephones ringed in each home with crazy puppets making noises from the old house,

Daughters were not to fall in love that year when Kali stayed back like,

One obedient daughter, they were bathing her in butter, with platter full of sweets,

From Goblin Market, Rossetti said many a times, not to look back and eat their fruits,

But Kali didn’t know she was living in the castle of Goblin men,

Her red tongue became heavy of thousands of bogus prayers that sat heavy on it,

Pulling it inside, she closed her lips forever, not to say ‘Tathastu’ evermore,

After the war came to an end, another of the daughters was disowned from the puppet’s home,

Kali was given to me, wearing her red border saree with alta feet she quietly came,

And sat inside my wooden house, she eats less, talks less, but smiles more,

Her room lit with an earthen lamp keeps her warm,

Forever till our breath two sisters in arms now, I came as a new bride once,

Carrying in my lap, an old friend from the cremation grounds,

Two goddesses were disowned, but we never missed the tavern that wasn’t,

Ours, neither those daughters who were like dolls, spoke their tongue and so loved,

I talked my heart out in so many years after, remembering the night when Kali came along

Deciding to stay with me forever, wonder I a goddess she is, still disowned!

~Monalisa Joshi~

                                                               Image Source/ Credit: Pinterest