Draupadi

                                                                                                           

Shall I call you Princess Draupadi
or fireborn orphan from no human womb

invoked, invited by a conjurer’s chants

a package deal for Drupad’s revenge?

You never played puchi on Yamuna banks

no mother’s breast fed you life into veins

you came as heroine to twist and turn

the fate and the course of this great land.

For you the Princes tested their powers

hitting the fish- eye moving on a mast

but he who won had to share your soul

you rolled on five arms like  a mute doll.

You were a commodity for customers five

rending your soul in your body divide-

yet you reigned, Empress of hearts and minds

to be a wager by your own lord blind.

Unclothed you were to the shouts of whore

you questioned the rights of men and bore

the insults in tears and disheveled hair

roamed in the forest from lair to lair.

Yet you mothered the universe

in your hand was the Akhaya Patra

you fed birds animals and humans

your mind heart torn apart

in summer winter and rain

you caused the war

history accuses you of revenge

epics give you thousand names

yet you shampooed your matted hair

with the blood of the arms of nemesis:

were you happy and fulfilled

I’ll never know nor wish to know.

Your children were killed

Husbands abandoned you

When you fell on stony slabs of snow,

no arm rested your bleeding head.

You came from fire

ended on ice bloodied by your own

what shall I  call you Princess or sod,

Princess of history or woman defiled

You came like magic went like stone

Lightning blasted leaving dark zone.

Sabita sahu