Published in Countercurrent
Do these women have rights?
These women who break rocks
These women who carry bricks
These women who in Temples please Gods
What Gods?
Devdasis?
Can they Me Too?
Farmers’ wives, sweepers,
Women who clean dirt
From homes and yet
Live in dirt themselves.
Women who could not go to school
Can they Me Too?
Women who remain
Unlettered, Unfed, Unclothed
Women whose children die before birth
from malnutrition
Women whose malnourished children stare bare-backed
and Beg at traffic junctions
Migrant labour — Women, Men, Children
Which of them have rights?
Poverty denies
Defies Pollution
Defies Education
Defies Wealth
Poverty has Beliefs, Rituals —
— Nebulous Gods and Goddesses—
432m's Blog 