The old woman
Who is only a skeleton
Held together with a thin layer of skin
Wrinkled with innumerable lines
Without any muscles or flesh
Sweeps the courtyard
with her bare hands
sitting and dragging herself
picks up the mango leaves
and throws them in the ditch
by the road side.
And now a fattish woman stands near her
Much younger and stronger
With one hand on her waist
With the other gesturing with her index finger
“Don’t dump leaves in our side.”
She says rudely to the old woman
She is the old woman’s daughter- in-law!
Her voice contains no kindness, no respect!
Instead of asking her mother-in-law to rest
She speaks to her like her Mistress!
The old woman lives in an old room
She sweeps her own floor
She washes her own old white sari
Whose whiteness has long departed
Her younger son sends her some food
Which is insipid, without loving taste
She asks me,” Why is God not taking me?”
She offers puja to a stone
Under the bel tree in the courtyard.
Though this is truth often talked about
The daughter-in-law doesn’t know it perhaps
That she will grow old and weak one day
Her son will bring a wife one day soon
She will be her daughter- in-law
Will she be kind and respectful
To her mother- in-law?
Well may be, or may not be.
However, history tells us and the stories
Of life prove it the daughters-in-law
Are earned as Karmic rewards or retribution
by women !
Xavier Bage
Sun, September 02,2018
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