She was a lonesome seller of jasmine and roses.
She cried and yelled "Hear ye, all you strangers in a park, a temple or a funeral
I have something pretty for your hair and something pleasant for your noses."
Walking street to street
She had to bear the cold of shivering winter nights
And bear the summer's unforgiving heat.
She was the one you saw in every train headed somewhere far or near.
At every junction where the buses halt.
Words of scorn and anger were what she heard.
But a mother had she to care for and a young brother too
Rarely did she see a smiling face or hear words of cheer.
Drinking and gambling might lure her brother
And that was her only concern and fear.
She was a lonesome seller of jasmines and roses.
She cried "Hear ye, all you strangers in a park, a temple or a funeral
I have something pretty for your hair and something pleasant for your noses."
Her brother, he made a dime or two while playing his flute
He sold newspapers and sliced cucumbers too
His patched up shirt, it was smeared with black soot
He cleaned and swept the hotel rooms
Sometimes stealing a penny or two.
He didn't speak too much, his silence it loomed
And built around his weary body and dusky face
He did not always return home every night
His boyhood had vanished without a trace
One night when he returned after a fortnight of absence.
He tried hard to make this meager fortune last
In vain she tried to hold his childhood back and touch his fading innocence.
He had lost the halo he once had, the broken child of a hundred stars
Sad pangs of longing striked his roots and bones.
Yet wore a smile and slaved his body beyond midnight hours.
Her brother, he made a dime or two while playing his flute
He sold newspapers and sliced cucumbers too
His patched up shirt, it was smeared with black soot.
Her friends, they were kind and playful
Rainy days and boisterous winds came and went
Their little home rocked all night to the coughs of her mother, awful
Thoughts and fears crept in and out faster than the golden sun
Far away in that valley of dreams and ambitions far beyond
The rivers of pain and hunger where she carried this burden
Of flesh's thousand needs, a hundred fancies she dared to paint
She dared to dream and hope, to cross every ocean
And move every mountain, her thoughts knew no restraint.
She laughed loud and sobbed hard, she the tenderest creation
Living her life in her green mind's eden polluted by society
She prowled and pranced like a wild river's roaring musical motion.
Then one day everything tumbled and powdered to dust
Her brother, he was stealing some twenty rupees
A cruel victim of chance, he was busted.
The faint bells of dignity they once dearly protected
Was now going down the drain as they found out three days later
His broken frail body was helpless and starved.
He begged for mercy, but the man denied it.
She had to scrape a whole week's earning together
Along with her mother's cherished bangles
The indifferent rich men spoke of justice and education
Their plastic wives nodded straightening their tangles.
She went with her head held high to get her brother back
Twenty odd from the dead pockets of wealth wasn't worth the rotting cell.
She put down all her savings on the table by the bent down racks
Of fat books of law, constitution and other high sounding baloney
The policeman twirled his moustache as he eyed the slender girl.
He glanced all the crumpled money and faded jewels lying on the table
Coldly with a shrug, he says ‘this is no good'but there is a way as he swirled
His long cane like a hungry hunter and came forward as the girl shivering stood still.
She did walk out with her freed brother half an hour later
But she was silent and her poor body ached and had lost every shred of her will.
After what happened inside the closed doors of justice's appointed guards
She walked fast like a ghost caught in a hurricane
Her eyes wide and expressionless, they searched and searched hard.
She went straight to the lone majestic tree made lifeless by the ravage of autumn.
And hung herself till her life squeezed out of her broken lips in one last whisper.
Her gentle brother, aching inside, wounded and hurt discovered it too late
He watched her frail sister, the starlight of his dusty weary soul.
Her unmarked grave, her unspoken words, fears and little aspirations
All flew like mateless birds of shattered wings in the hell's unblessed hole.
This my friends was the tale of the lonesome seller of jasmines and roses
I wished to sing to you about how she fought back like a tough goddess of wrath
Like an angel of change, she stood and fought defiantly, something like Moses.
Oh, believe me, I wish I could say that, but I need to speak the truth
Of what happened and It breaks my fingers to write this ravaged cruelty.
She was who you saw in every corner of this sick society's maddened maze
Our stale talks and vain streams of wasted sweat fulfilling defined roles of travesty.
This my friends was the tale of how the lamb of innocence met the clawed cold gaze...
This my friends was the tale of a flower which in our burning cauldron turned to steam
This my friends was the tale of the girl who sold flowers for a night full of dreams...