Henna on Naïve Hands

TW: CHILD MARRIAGE, SELF HARM.

The hall was full of guests present to witness a moment of a lifetime

Buzzes immerged from smoke near the mandap

Someone carried her on a palanquin

She was losing her balance, 

The flame ahead had blurred her vision but she felt rainbow

From her ghungat’s net, she searched for her father in the crowd,

He was her last hope who could balance her life between happiness and compromise.

 

Her last hope was crushed into henna, she felt the thunder raging in her life,

This henna dyes her hands with horror, 

Let a stranger’s name color her palms,

She didn’t allow someone to come and control her life. 

 

Her eyes were fixed for help, 

She feels like breaking those red bangles which

Decorate her wrist, red is said to bring happiness, but isn’t freshly cut skin also scarlet,

She feels like slamming it to the door, but she has bottled up her feelings.

The fire was burning not in the mandap

But her heart.

It's burning to ashes, she felt like a product,

She questioned if she was a human or a trade deal or a burden to get rid of,

Why is it kanyadaan?

 

She struggled to live a life where she smiled out of delight

All she did was fight to be treated like a human, not a lost kite.

Years later when they got separated, her family didn't support her,

She still searched for her father in the crowd filled with taunters.

 

She knew money wasn't happiness and comprise wasn't worth it,

She worked day and night, took a one-bedroom apartment on the corner of the town,

She had a baby girl on the way,

She wished she could make this world a better place for her to stay,

She wanted the terror of her life is poured by the daylight