Can I be your Cinderella for tonight?
It was a poetry fair
And poets across the globe were there,
Chatting in voices crackly
Sassy and active with vigor,
In love and camaraderie.
Such wondrous works of art,
Like flowers in a floral fair,
Murmuring the rhapsody of love
Defying hypocrisy and simulation,
Lineage and language.
I was there too
Neither afraid nor pretentious
Going through poems
Of all climes and rhymes,
When suddenly, a poem struck me——
So simple, so humble, and yet,
Blossoming like cherry blossoms
In all its beauty and its might.
‘I think it fits me,
The shoe in this poem fits me,’
I said to myself.
I wore it and it was fit and fine.
It brought a rapprochement
Between me and the poet.
I felt the first drizzle of monsoon,
I saw the water lilies sprouting,
I saw Yamuna’s ripples kissing the shore
And the stars racing in the sky.
The poet was there looking
At me longingly
With shyness shining in his eyes,
While my soul communicated with his.
I metamorphosed from my cocoon
Of beauty melting with innocence.
I went to him
While the intense tidal waves
Of love came crashing softly
Against the walls of my heart.
I landed in his arms,
Put one leg in between his legs
And said in a husky voice,
‘Prince Charming, can I be
Your Cinderella for tonight?’
He drew me closer to him
And said gently,
‘Can you be my Cinderella
For the rest of my nights?’
Pushing my leg in
A little harder and deeper,
I said.………..’Yes.’
Cinderella -- Charles Landseer
The 1st literary European version of the Cinderella story is in Giambattista Basile's "Pentamerone: Lo cunto de li cunti"(1634); it was adapted by Charles Perrault in "Histoires ou contes du temps passé" (1697), Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm in "Kinder- und Hausmärchen" (1812), and Walt Disney in a 1950 animated film (though he also made a short cartoon in 1922). The tales varied from author but they all told the story of an orphaned girl who was mistreated by a step-mother but was magically transformed into a beautiful lady with whom a king or prince fell in love; her identity was later confirmed when her foot fit a slipper she had lost. Some interpretations suggest that the slipper is actually a vagina (particularly if Perrault's glass slipper, "pantoufle de verre," was originally a "pantoufle de vair" (a slipper made of squirrel fur).
ReplyDeleteThe Yamuna is one of Inda's longest rivers. Its name is derived from the Sanskrit "yama" (twin) because it runs parallel to the Ganga. She was the daughter of Surya the sun god and Saranyu, the goddess of the clouds, and the sister of Shani (the planet Saturn), Vaivasvata Manu the 1st man, and the twin brothers Nasatya and Dasra, the gods of health and medicine. She was the 1st woman, and her twin brother Yama was the 1st mortal to die and who thus became the god of death; to allow Yamana to understand the passage of time and thus to achieve closure, the gods created night to separate 2 days.
According to the "Rigveda," Yama (the Yamuna) had "excessive love" for Yama, so he suggested that she find a suitable match (who turned out to be Krishna, the god of love and compassion). On the night of his birth, Krishna was rescued from his uncle who planned to kill him; when his way was blocked by the Yamuna, the river parted to allow him to cross. The "Bhagavata Purana" described how Krishna, an adult, met and married her. In the "Yamunashtakam," the 16th-century philosopher Vallabhacharya described her as the source of all spiritual abilities, with the power to grant freedom, even from death. The "Padma Purana" narrated that 2 brothers led ' sinful lives before their deaths; Yama sent the elder one to Naraka (Hell) and the younger to Svarga (Heaven) because he had bathed in the Yamuna for 2 months; the 1st month absolved him of sin and the 2nd granted him a place in Svarga.