Four girls in brocade,
tussar and stiff smiles, the
slow stranglehold of gold
on their hands, necks, faces.
They were the children who aged early.
Were they friends? Did they
share their fractured power
while swapping dolls, diamonds
and nights? Or were their eyes
darting and vicious over the pudding?
Did they avoid the bath at certain times?
Perhaps, three of them colluded
against the fourth, leaving
frogs on her bed, peas
under her mattress, spit
in her tea.
We can’t know. In this
photograph, they are
just four girls. Let out of purdah
frightened and unblinking
into the cameraman’s flash.
*First published at Kritya
1 Comment
April 2, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Hi I came across your name on PWB and randomly read some of your poems, but I liked this best!! It reminds me of a film I saw recently, “Raise the Red Lantern”(Chinese), and the parallels it made me draw between their society at the time and ours…