Date: Wed, 22 Apr 1998 11:32:47 -0600 (MDT)
From: Rinita Mazumdar <rinita-AT-nmt.edu>
Subject: Behula's Dream


Hello All,
It seems the publishing my poetry book is going to take a
while so I will go on ``publishing'' in this list. Well, some background.
This will be my first poem. It is from a very popular folklore of Bengal
where Behula is married to a rich Vaisya (of the merchant class) knowing
that her husband would die on the wedding night, which he did. She 
flowed with his corpse (we are not sure if that was her wish)
down the ganges (that part which falls in Bengal)
unto heaven where she had to please numerous Gods and after scores of
insults and humiliation
brought her husband back to life. In popular imagination in countryside
Bengal Behula
is considered the ``ideal wife''. My Behula goes one step further,
 (in her dreams) as she flows, she CREATES RESISTANCE for
her daughters, for us the subsequent Bengali women,

Rinita

P.S. Note:
Padma is a river now in Bangladesh; it is a distributary of the ganges
and flows into the Bay of Bengal.



Behula's Dream
--------------

You were all in my dream yesterday
As corpses flowing through vast waters
With dirt and green alligators!
Brothers, fathers, kings, and rulers
All who pained me.
Husbands who slashed my vagina,
Husbands who widowed me,
You who burnt me into ashes,
You who delighted in my agonizing pain,
As I flow through shadows of mythical water and drops of rain.
In my dreams I see corpses
All rising and dancing in joy;
All who ploughed me as they please;
All who stood watching me in pools of blood
As my tears filled the padma, created flood,
And soaked the forests, valleys and trees of Bengal
Like the Yakshas of kali in their demonic destruction of all.
I see too in the horizon the corpses dancing in dark,
As I row alone against coffins soaking in fathomless murky bed
To bring for my daughters
The magical dawn of red.