Sita and Jatayu
It was Jatayu who tried to pursue
Rawan to save Sita, his treasured King’s
wife, as she prayed to her Rama to free
her from Rawan’s clutch, squeezing tight her spleen
The Vulture King, Jatayu’s time was due.
The demon Rawan’s blade had chopped his wings
and, to his friend Rama granted mukti
as he lay dying in the forest green.
Yet the atman of Jatayu mamoo
calmed the sea, while Sita and her young twins,
in the Fatel Razack, crushed and thirsty,
longed for lassi and their royal cuisine.
And wasn’t it Jatayu’s glance askew
that Sita saw while being weighed from springs
on Nelson Island, then given sari
and a bar of blue soap for her hygiene?
It was Jatayu’s steadfastness, like glue,
through the jungles and canefields, and wasp stings,
that feathered Sita as she ate roti
while fighting off brute hands, rough and porcine.
By the light of her bedi, Sita knew
She was tethered strong, even in wind swings,
by Jatayu, anchored in the flame tree,
Who shielded her, as if she were still queen.
Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming
We Mark Your Memory: Writing from the Descendants of Indenture is a collection edited by David Dabydeen, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen and Tina K. Ramnarine and published by the School of Advanced Study, University of London and Commonwealth Writers.
It was published in 2018 to mark the centenary of the abolition of the system of indentureship in the British Empire (2017 – 2020). The volume brings together, for the first time, writings by the descendants of indentured immigrants from across the Commonwealth. The editors describe it as “a unique attempt to explore, through the medium of poetry and prose, indentured heritage in the twenty-first century”. Last week, we selected a poem from this volume – “Chutney Love” by Gabrielle Jenella Hosein.
