It was hot, so hot, before the eunuchs came
To dance, wide skirts going round and round, cymbals
Richly clashing, and anklets jingling, jingling
Jingling... Beneath the fiery gulmohur, with
Long braids flying, dark eyes flashing, they danced and
They dance, oh, they danced till they bled... There were green
Tattoos on their cheeks, jasmines in their hair, some
Were dark and some were almost fair. Their voices
Were harsh, their songs melancholy; they sang of
Lovers dying and or children left unborn....
Some beat their drums; others beat their sorry breasts
And wailed, and writhed in vacant ecstasy. They
Were thin in limbs and dry; like half-burnt logs from
Funeral pyres, a drought and a rottenness
Were in each of them. Even the crows were so
Silent on trees, and the children wide-eyed, still;
All were watching these poor creatures' convulsions
The sky crackled then, thunder came, and lightning
And rain, a meagre rain that smelt of dust in
Attics and the urine of lizards and mice....
[From Summer in Calcutta]
The Dance Of The Eunuchs
Kamala Das
(4)
Poem topics: funeral, green, hair, poor, sky, sorry, summer, long, silent, thunder, dust, beneath, children, dance, dark, rain, wide, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
Submit Spanish Translation
Submit German Translation
Submit French Translation
Write your comment about The Dance Of The Eunuchs poem by Kamala Das
Bijay Kant Dubey: The Dance of The Eunuchs is all about the transgenders coming with their band or group is but a common scne in India. They generally come after hearing the birth of the children or during the marriage time. On different auspicius occasions we too need them as for to seek for their blessings which is but the blessing of Shiva Ardhanrishwara. But in their merry-making and joviality lies it hidden the woes of their life as they could neither be men nor women. What a life did they get for whom life turned into a curse? Even though they make it for a tamasha for the childen sitting wide-eyed, unable to understand what this mazra is, it is in reality a motley of strange fellows with strange physical abnormal deformities. Even they laugh they cannot naturally, even they weep they cannot naturally. There is something which but keeps them coaxing. They too feel it what it is up to live for.
Best Poems of Kamala Das