Just The Tattoo Telling The Name Of The Nameless Woman Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

The village woman after the seven rounds
Around the sacred fire
And vermillion put into the parting line of the hair,
Clicking it not the name of her husband,
The head lowered under a veil
And shied away from the world.

Backward, poor and illiterate,
Reared in an orthodox and conservative society,
Quite traditional enough,
She cannot cross the Lakshmanrekha,
Lakshaman-drawn home periphery
Of the courtyard
Even though a sadhu comes to seek for the alms
As who may know his disguise and purpose of silent visit?

She cannot take the name of her husband
As it will be sinful
To take the name,
A Sita-Sati-Savitri,
Just under the veil,
A little bit of the sari border over her head
She continues with her feminine get-up.

Only the tattoo on the hand saying the name of the husband
Or her name,
She will not speak it herself
The name of her owner of the household
As the husband is a god of some kind
And it is not good to take the name of the husband,
Which will be bad for her to take
As it may lessen his life-span.