the girl child

Fierce warriors celebrate 

a victory in the courtyard

raising their weapons above their heads
and dancing in a circle
They were boasting about killing many people

Two men come in, 

bearing a girl high on their shoulder

A smiling, grinning girl 

They put her down 

and she started walking

Dressed in a plain orange sari and blouse 

with a light golden border

She had tied it up dhoti style between her leg 

so that she could walk easily

As if she was dressed for battle

She carried no weapons, 

but I knew she could lead a war

She was powerful, even a little bit arrogant 

in the knowledge of her own power

I instantly new that she was the kumari

 

But she was not like the demure, 

docile little girls dressed up as kumaris today

She was radiant, 

and the glow came from her power, 

the power of a little girl's sexuality, 

latent, not flowered yet, 

but holding the promise of an entire creation

She knew her powers, 

which made her awesome to behold.

She walked towards me, purposefully

Between us was a mound of ash

on one side covered in bright orange

Vermilion, I presumed. 

 

She scooped up some in her hand, 

and offered it to me

I accepted it in my hands, 

and there it a lay, 

a miniature of what was on the ground

A mound of ash 

covered with vermilion on one side

The realisation that 

this was not a little girl 

but a grown woman in a little girl's body

The ashes, of Shivaji

and Kumari, an incarnation of Durga, 

it all fit together

 

She was Shakti, 

in the human form of kumari

She was the entire feminine energies 

of the universe who gave me a prasad.

If I do not believe in god

and shakti or kumari, 

how do I take it, 

as an atheist person?

 

Kumari, a symbol of 

latent feminine energies

and Shakti, the entire 

feminine energies of the universe

gave me a prasad

Bright vermilion over ashes

 

A new life full of feminine energies 

over the ashes of an old one

 

It is time, she said. 

to awaken your 

feminine energies again