Saree
It came wrapped in desire’s eager rustling
a gift I did not choose.
Though warp and weft obeyed
an ambiguous design, the shade
beguiled.
The texture satisfied
a hunger, not merely of the eye.
I shook it loose and shaped it to my use.
Line and colour clung to breast and thigh.
The border’s thread of gold
repeated in each pleat and fold
flashed in the mirrors of others’ eyes.
“It’s grand!” they said “Beware the evil eye!”
But one who called herself my friend
warned, “That red will run, and leave you stained!
All blotched you’re going to be, with memory!
It’s flimsy stuff — won’t last you till the end!
Don’t mistake me, but that jari’s fake!
I’m only telling you this for your own sake.”
She was right, and wrong.
Though the colour bled, the fabric held.
The texture satisfied
that hunger, not merely of the eye.
The gold proved genuine
silver — a not unacceptable exchange
when time came to trade desire and greed
for plain and simple need.
I have stripped the borders and bleached out the stains.
Rich decoration gone, each tantalising line
obliterated, it needs no defense
against the evil eye. Of design,
promise, and pretense, nothing remains.
What’s left is unglossed warp and weft.
A sturdy weave as natural as air.
A seamless second skin
concealing and revealing what I choose
like clouds shaped and reshaped
to the sun’s ever-changing use.
Worn thin, the texture still satisfies
that hunger, not merely of the eye.
From “A Word Between Us”;
– Sandhya Publications
Vasantha Surya is a well known poet, translator, journalist and children’s writer. She has been observing the dynamics of social, cultural and linguistic changes in today’s India, and specifically in Tamil Nadu over the past four decades.