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Feb 21, 2015

The Tea Boiling Over

     The year 2013 was a very tough one, especially the month of December. I lived in a typical Indian rural village, caught between the traditions of the old times and the advancements of modern societies. I had to live with a family from the village, as any other family member, experiencing their lives without the luxuries that I came from.
       Amidst all of this, was the little daughter and her friend living every day as it came. Waiting for the tea they made everyday for all household members, and watching them in their childish freedom, wrote a poem. 
      Despite the shift in the society towards womens' rights and equality, the reality in our daily lives remains unchanged. Perhaps this pain is what brought on this expression. 

The girls making serving tea in the school.
Every inch of the old dusty mud house
Touched by their loud innocent giggles
The air slowly invaded
By the aroma of the tea they make.
Their mother bathing half naked
By the open tap overlooking the hills,
Warns them of the tea boiling over,
As they continue amusing each other like kids.
How are they to know
Every minute spent here with mother
Is just another step
Towards their new destined homes?
Homes decided while they sat dreaming
Of their futures untold to them yet.

Their very mother by their side
Shall send them off with packed suitcases
Before their childhood giggles mature into a woman’s laughter.
Their innocence blind
To how their families will soon,
Very soon,
Sell them off in marriage
Only to fill their old dusty mud house
With sobs of another’s little daughter.


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