You A Villagerly, Poor Girl-Child Of India Weeping For Cosmetics, My Love And I Can’t Give It To You, How Can It Be? Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

Rustic Maid, grew you up
In the rustic villages,
I mean the thorps and hamlets of Poor India
Where reigned it
Poverty and illiteracy,
Backwardness and underdevelopment,
Hunger and superstition,
A small girl
Passed you
Your days in doing home-works,
Field works,
Working hard,
Getting less,
Unable to eat, drink, clothe and dress,
Oil and apply on,
A poor girl living poorly,
Looked after your small brother,
Helped the mother,
Cooked food after
Hand fanning and puffing into a blaze
The dry leaves and haystacks
Into the earthen oven
Where Poverty too wept
To see the conditions so miserably
And after feeding all, took you
The left-overs,
The Poor Girl-child of India,
But after seeing you weeping
As for the ribbon, hair bands and pins,
Clips, myrtle leaves, beauty spots,
Hair oil, red liquid-colour for the toes,
Face cream, face powder,
I too feel sad, very, very sad for this.