by Prem Prakash Limbu

Through the mazed dark lanes
Ornated in cheap jewels and brocades
Overshading cosmetics overpainted
In their seductive overcut cheopo garments
Stand inviting
Like the overconcious vendors
All to serve, for life to live
Smuggled from Nepal to Bangladesh
With bitter stories untold
With stories of necessitiousness
Clouded under lusty eyes
Just treaded by
Through the beshyaleela
That birthed in the wake of the 19th century
From outskirts of Cornwall’s Street
To Chitpur, Kalighat, Khidirpore
And the most infamous Sonagachi
That has survived
Many Pakeezahs, Umrao Jaan
And Chandini Bars
Under the gloomy congested
Comparted dens
With a dishevelled cot
Through dilapidated ancient
Amateur architectural pillars
But the pain embedded
In the core of merciless muscles
Graved in thousand indignations
Like the caged thrushes
I’m stranded
Where I see them pounced hungrily
And robbed of chaste every moment
With thousand lustful eyes prying
And they serve
With piercing laughter that cries
For social air
With unrubbable scar
I had just voyaged the cursed island
Within the dignified culture
As said
But it was Sonagachi.

Poet’s Note:

Sonagachi is one of the world’s largest brothel situated in Kolkata, India where many unfortunate girls and women are living the life of sex slaves.

Editor’s Note on The Minstrels of the Dark Lust:

The Minstrels of the Dark Lust is not Prem Prakash Limbu’s first work to appear in Eastlit. His previous published pieces are:

• The Wounded Womb appeared in Eastlit August 2015.