pleasure was yours, the pain is mine;
you choose to live, leaving me to die.
is it my fault, i came into being?
i didn’t have a choice, you had one.
why was i than abandoned by you?
if this ignominy is existence for me;
i would have preferred to die.
death i would have welcomed,
wholeheartedly within your womb!
(c)gautami.tripathy
~Sept 25, 2006
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I wrote this a few minutes back. Posting it here without any edits or refining it. It triggered in my mind after I wrote a reply on my book review post on The Scarlet Letter on a network.
In India, most of the babies who are born out of wedlock are abandoned and at times left to die unless someone finds them. And a girl child faces this even if she is born inside of wedlock. This is what such a baby would ask if given a chance to speak.
I too ask why......fully well knowing there aren't any answers.....
Well...everyone has a strong enough reason for their actions, but it is a bit unfair if they are disturbing the integrity of an other life.
ReplyDeleteFemale infanticide is worse...a child is seen as an object and parents start calculating the profit and loss 20 years down the lane. A very sad state...creating awareness might not actually work. People are hypnotised and conditioned by the soceity around them...only if there is some way to get them out of their self-hypnosis. It has gotten me thinking now.
M.
It makes me want to scream and sterilize everybody on the planet!
ReplyDeleteImagine if people were not able to just randomnly breed at will....oooh dangerous ground.
I would not be surprised if Global Conglomerations secretly started sterilizing humans within the next 20 years. Maybe they already have?
Manoj,
ReplyDeleteIt isn't about female infanticide. It is about the child who is abandoned after it is born.In garbage dumps, roadsides, nooks, corners, at doorsteps of any place of worship.
I am not talking about the lower crust. I am speaking for the so-called upper crust who forget to practise safe sex and have their pleasure. Do not even undergo abortions. Just go away for a few months, return as fresh dew after having dumped the baby. Yes, dumping the baby.
The female child goets a raw deal though. She is abandoned more often than the male one!
Yes homo, I feel the same way. I feel helpless and want to murder the mother/father. The father is seldom in the picture. For one, he had his pleasure and moved on to the next relationship.
Is sterilizations any solution? I suppose it is till the mindset of the people is changed..
sigh..
Why does everyone think I overeact?
Gautami, this is hard reality, but I think you've expressed the depth of despair of abandonment perfectly. I think this poem is best unedited, as the act your describing is. Thank you for honoring me with a link. I will add you to mine.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this. It means so much more when the poet tells the background of the poem. Thank you--
ReplyDeletePat: Thanks for the visit. I thought editing or refining it would take away what I want to convey. It had to raw and stark!
ReplyDeletej. andrew lochart: welcome! I have been a lurker on your blog. I will link you your blog to mine.
I write mostly about what I feel is happening around me.
Stark is right, GT, but its effectiveness was that it WAS stark and unedited.
ReplyDeleteI hope this isn't too personal, but was this your situation?
How prevalent is it?
We talk about a disposable society, but this is the farthest extreme of that, and tragic.
This happens in North America...just not very often, I don't think, certainly in comparison.
Do you think this is a product of India's huge population? Is there a sense there's too many females?
Is it a product of the caste system? Does the criminal justice system prosecute those caught doing it?
Brutal.
Thanks for the poem and the explanation.
Within without: I will address your question in a separate post.
ReplyDeleteI will answer only one question here:
This not personal. I got three brothers and I am much loved only daughter of the family.