A Wedding Night in Srinagar

Leaving the party since long
The bride has retired to the nuptial bed.
The guests from afar –
Delhi, Lahore and Mirpur –
Wonder, pityingly, why
The groom has not joined her.

Don’t the customs demand that the marriage
Be consummated on the wedding night?
Is she probably exhausted
And just lying there
Waiting for him?

Or had somebody been forcing her
To stare at the ceiling,
Waiting for him
During tonight’s lonely, agonizing hours?

Here sits the groom –
Happy, handsome and heedless –
Drinking Bacardis with friends
Thinking life will become a dry day
From the next morning.

How much longer will he sit up
Drinking when he ought to be in bed
With his new wife?

Don’t the customs equally stipulate,
As well as consummation on the wedding night,
That the groom not leave the party
Until the last guest departs?

So the new bride will wait
Till the buses carry the guests –
Their uniforms, dances and tools –
To Delhi, Lahore and Mirpur.

Till then the groom will pretend
His reluctance to go to her
On their wedding night.

Maybe the night will listen
To the bride’s prayer
And will swallow the guests.

But the dawn is breaking.
And the dawn is breaking.