Dhaka, Bangladesh

Hathras

The fire you see through your tv, burning over the trees,

That is me. My body being burned.

If I have been alive,

I would have my family to be there at my last rites.

Nevertheless, I am dead. I have no rights!

I am a woman. I have no rights!

I am a Dalit. I have no rights!

The field you see on TV is the field where I walked for the last time,

You see the foliage on the site.

I was dragged there, raped and assaulted.

I am a Dalit woman. I was a Dalit woman.

Now, I am dead.

They burned my body in the middle of the night,

With the police cordoned all around.

Can you imagine the importance of being a dead scheduled caste raped woman?

That is me!

This is my village of nineteen years.

That is the entire span of my life.

For nineteen years, I walked in these fields.

I milked the buffaloes; I did the household work.

I went to school. I studied in class three.

If you ask the neighbours, probably they will say,

She was a simple and homely girl.

She walked through the fields.

She cooked for her father and the family.

I did what a village girl does.

I was what a village girl was.

I was no one. Invisible!

I was like anybody else!

I spent my last earthly life in the hospital bed.

I was paralyzed. My spine was broken.

On my death bed, I told my sister in law,

To tell "Ma" that I would return home soon.

However, you knew that I would not.

The flames through the trees you see in every tv channel that is me.

There was no respect being a Dalit while I was alive.

Even in death, there was no dignity for a Dalit.

My body being burned.

I was raped and assaulted.

I was a woman! A Dalit woman.

Now, I am dead!

Invisible both in earthly and afterlife.

Invisible and No one!