Shashtars and Dhambouras
Created | Updated Jan 24, 2009
Blushing in dawn coloured splendour
the Hindu Kush awakens above morning's
murmured salaams. Taru Buz Khan Street's ubiquitous
teahouses are filling. In quickening wisps
and flicks, eyes inside the burqa look out
upon the Bagh-e Babur. Shivers of sadness
waken her, for once again men assail her
sleep and she dreams of killing scorpions.
They damn her for a beggar while feeling
for her sex. Beatings, abuse, shaming pain yet
still she comes to dusty streets, where Babur's
tomb resides amidst barbarism of a worldly ilk...
"If there is a paradise on earth, it is this, oh it is this, oh it is this!"
Epitaph for a Mughal Emperor; Alms, alms for your soul.
A brotherhood of misery enshrouds the city
as her gentle luthier bereft of slender fingers
shorn for a dogma gone wild, wallows
in nightmares: provider bereft of manhood
scarred stumps decry a cruelty, adrift from
holy ethos stretching before and after Babur.
A bridge broken at both ends and
still she dreams of killing scorpions.
