Girls
 
Like the letters
delivered to wrong addresses
are the girls not cared for

Blinded by the heaps of dollars
they bind their daughters in marriage
to the merciless stumps of spiny trees

Mother, daughter, sister, wife, lover
all relations stem from girls
still for centuries their cries reach us
in mourning their wounded souls

Religion and social customs
left no stone unturned
in destroying their identity

Some called them rustic and cattle
some asked for death behind their back
some labeled them dumb
but no one would light their dark paths 

No one on the road would pick up 
the broken pieces of their glass bangles
no one would anoint their wounded bodies and souls
one has to learn oneself how to see through
the hanky-panky of the dishonest

To light one's path
one has to carry
one's own torch.

-tr. Ravi Kopra

******

The original in Punjabi

- Sukhinder Singh
from APNA, http://www.apnaorg.com/poetry/sukhinder/6.html