The women in the story.

I

She sits there
amidst flashlight bulbs,
crackling microphones,
cameras and
a sea of eyes and mouths.
Bathed in a pool of light
she sits, silent.
The lights are too weak
to trace the hollow in her eyes.
Or her eyes have ceased reflecting.
An angry buzz surrounds her.
Protests and heated debates.
The flames do not touch her.
She sits alone
in a crowd of well-dressed, learned people.
In her soiled saree
and comatose eyes
she looks a complete misfit.
Some marvel at her composure,
the strength of her mind,
the incomparable tolerance!
Their praises do not reach her.
Comforting fingers do not reach her.
She sits, stares blankly.
Perhaps memories crowd her brains so...
she can not think.
And then it's so hard to believe.
She doesn't cry.
Tears wouldn't heal the gaping wound.
Tears wouldn't fill the neat, round hole.
One could look through it
and see a death and a crowd.
Everybody claimed justice.
Perhaps she should claim him back.
She is too tired.
She needs some sleep.
She searches for his face
somewhere in the crowd
to take her home
and lull her to sleep.
Somebody is wishing her a happy Eid.

II

In the hollow cave of her room
She sits,
away from prying eyes
and voices dripping in sympathy.
Sleep is an absurd commodity
her father can not buy. Nor her dead husband.
Things are so haphazard now
that she lives inside her head
and relives her short-spun life.
She despised tragic-heroines,
sacrificers and sacrificeds.Always!
And he knew.
Mother's hands are not so soft now.
They don't bring sleep.
She wonders why.
And her eyes;those twin pains!
They do nothing but see and dream.Him!
And him!
She never thought he'd torment her so
haunt her so...
He who promised he loved.
The pink on her wall is so bleak!
Layers of dust on green leaves!
And those inauspicious drums!
Her head aches!
This palatial prison suffocates her.
Mother's womb would be safer perhaps?
Or...Or...
that box under the green turf...
inside it, beside him,
not yet turned to bones perhaps.
At least the grass above would be fresh and green
and the box cozy and warm.