Vidya Do Forgive Us

Whilst we were gliding in the ferries of dreams

You were abducted.

We were sipping our evening tea relishing each drop leisurely,

Your hands were tied behind your back!

We were admiring the high-heeled shoes

Through the glass frames of the shops across the street,

You were ripped and destroyed!

We returned home and cuddled our children

You were ripped and destroyed once again!!

A banter with friends over the phone long and lengthy

You were ripped and destroyed once more!!!

We got into the bath for a warm and soothing shower

You were slain heartlessly!

I will not call those eight cowards as beasts,

Beasts are compassionate beings,

Full of feelings of empathy.

Would I call them Monsters, Never.

I have read about kind-hearted monsters in ‘Chanda Mama’ stories.

Your mind and body might have borne an epoch of agony

Hoarded anguish of your eighteen years in this world.

You might have cursed the world that could not save you.

We have no strength to listen to your words.

Whatever you wanted to say for the last.

I absorb not, I know not,

How a mind becomes a brutal killing field

After it was cradled in a womb of a mother

And grew up sucking her milk.

No wonder.

A world where a woman is skimmed as a bundle of flesh

Not as a soul nor as a fellow human being

No wonder Her existence is precarious.

From a budding three-year-old child

To a withered woman lapsed seventy

No wonder Her existence is precarious.

August 11th, 2016 By Shameela Yoosuf Ali

On the Memory of Vidya Shivaloganadan from Punguduthivu, Jaffna, Sri Lanka, who was gang-raped and killed on the 13th of May 2015 The original poem was written in Tamil and translated into English by the author.

Published Still We Sing. Voices on Violence against Women (Anthology), Edited by Sarita Janmani