RUCHIKA

By Badri Raina

Ruchika, golden fawn, your

Joy-filled, wide-eyed view

Of the world

Was too untutored to see

The wolf in the office room.

You trusted his disguise

And paid fatal price.



You must have been taught

How this is the land

Where women are put

On the deified grandstand.

Too young a pupil you to know

There is that here which is worshipped

And that other which is true;

That throughout the ages

It has been so.



Or that wolves that roam the Indian prairie

Are also known to band together

In all sorts of weather.



But times now are a changing.

You might just have been the little fawn

Whose blood is set to secure

A whole world of fawns,

And bring many a wolf to book.

Your pristine little life, so abused,

So defiled, so murderously denied,

May just have put tongue

Into a million mouths

That had no voice before.

The cruelty of your going

May just have made a whole nation

Realize how rotten we are to the core.