Who's husbands die.
She rubs their vermillion-laden
Maang and wraps around them
A white saree like it's a shroud
To condemn them for life.
She herself is a widow,
She can't look someone in the eye.
Her shadow is forbidden on the kids
And they don't let her walk around
When the newlywed couples arrive.
In the seventh house on the fourth
Street of the village, she too
Has a humble life.
The smell of her sambar makes it
The streets daily twice,
There's hope in the bright eyes of
Her only child.
But more often than not, everyone
Tries to remind her of the closed
Paths to her maiden home and the
Jasmines in the backyard she can
Never have.
The last soft touch of her deceased
Husband crosses her mind sometimes,
Only to grip her with the cold
Hesitant hands of another woman,
Who wrapped what's left of her life in
A white saree, to make her a mere
Body of the walking dead.