[This Haiku was inspired by looking at the wires criss-crossing the skies in the evening while walking with my pet, while the moon shone brilliant as ever. The price of urbanisation!!!]
Captive Moon
The urban moon
Enmeshed, encrypted
Daedalus in captivity.
Footnotes: In Greek mythology, Daedalus was a master artisan and craftsman who created the labyrinth on Crete, in which Minotaur [half man, half bull] was kept.
Elegy to My Baby:
(This poem is dedicated to the cause of prevention of female foeticide that remains an unresolved problem in many parts of India. It is an address of the mother to the baby she has terminated in her womb.)
The moment you were sown into my womb
you became a part of me.
You were the creation of a magical moment
A moment of blissful, complete love.
No one can understand that secret
No one can share it.
My body told me that you were in me
Even before the doctor could conform it.
The joy of listening to those words
‘You are going to be a mother’.
Me, a mother!
By what divine intervention had this happened?
I became your mother from that moment
I was one with your flesh
I was a manifestation of the creator himself
I was carrying a miracle profound within me.
In another situation I would have been pampered
‘Don’t do this, eat this’
The women of the house would have told me.
I would have thought of so many names for you everyday.
But in my situation I was damned and ridiculed
Mocked and shunned.
I was asked to do away with you
Quietly and quickly.
I fought for you, tried to take a stand
You know I must have tried hard,
Don’t you know your mother?
But you were a girl, only a girl.
I am sorry I let you down
I lost you, I terminated you.
Deepa Vanjani is the Head of the department
of languages in a leading college in indore,
India and a visiting faculty with Educational
Media Research Centre, UTD and School of
Comparative Languages, Indore, Madhya
Pradesh, India.