In 2017, I went to Patna to see the goddess. It was a return to a time when we would be up all night to see the festivities. There were all these stories. We heard them again. Over and over again.
Of the many childhood memories, one is about a circus. I remember that the circus ground looked like a fantasy world with all the lights and once inside, I first heard a lion roar, a trapeze artist perform and the rings of fire, capes and tights, and tiara’d young women in sequined outfits astride elephants, sliding down. I must have been six or seven then.
The present is unpleasant. We have a past and a yearning that serves as a deflection tactics. In the post-pandemic world, nostalgia could even be a positive thing as coping mechanism. We would like to read about your old memories.
The poem has immortalized that violence faced by the young Dalit girl who was allegedly raped by the upper caste men in Hathras last year. It is the poetry of witness.
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