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Marriage advertised: every household in India wants a bride who is convent educated, fair kind, and maybe comes with some gold!
A fair and beautiful bride is desired.
Capable of lighting the kitchen’s fire.
Convent educated with a disposition benign.
Who could breed sons in a line?
Decorating herself with her family’s ornamental pride.
No matter who’s wrong, she will be tried.
Precious and valuable like a sapphire.
With a purity to withstand the burning pyre.
A girl who will make the Fortune in favour, turn.
With skills and qualifications that will help her earn.
Her in-laws will not let tears glisten in her eye.
Bruises of childhood will now become scars on the thigh.
“Laxmi of the house”: wealth personified, she is.
Yet no wealth is as easy to part, as this.
Her purpose in life, since birth, is told:
To breed for a family she hardly knows.
“The princess will now become the queen.”
Her reign however is nowhere to be seen.
Her nuptial makes all happily grieve.
Darling Daughter with dowry is driven.
This poem is a part of the 2015 anthology entitled An Address to Indian Patriarchy by Nishtha Mishra.
Image source: Philippe Degrootee, free and edited on CanvaPro
Dr. Nishtha Mishra is an internationally published author. She is a Doctorate in English Literature from one of the reputed Central Universities. She has been an all round topper and has 5 gold medals to read more...
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