Rape Tourism
Yashodhara Ray Chaudhuri
Tourists arrived when it was a shade darker
This is the spot where a grand rape was staged
A murder as well, from that tree, hung her body
Laced with a million bruises, maybe more.
Here is a small town in the suburbs
Call it a baffled rural courtyard or so
Over there, lurks a horizon of darkness
Here is the hall for seminars in the hospital
Here, her visage has been washed in acid
There she has been slit to a thousand bits
Here, shards of glass pierced her solemn eyes
There, her intestines lie torn apart
An enraged crowd has demolished that outpost there
After what happened to their neighbor's little girl
And in this block, a thirteen-year-old was wrecked
After answering the next-door uncle's call.
Here, in the darkness, a culvert by the canal
A few free rapists congregate every day
They picked a girl today, and tomorrow
They'll pick another, unabashed, unhinged.
Was she young or old? Or just an infant?
Here, she gets raped in broad daylight
There, she is lost in the trench of darkness
Why did she have to go there at dusk?
A lot of tourists arrived on a bus
Hours passed, pointing at spots on the map
A village girl, girls from the suburbs, and cities
Who knows where they will be wrecked?
In this land, a bus full of tourists arrived
The package covered everything for all
Here used to live a country full of people
Just, at times, like little drops of water
One girl or two perished somewhere
Isolated incidents, looks good that way
Blood and murk, the grandeur enthralls!
