Mithila is fifty-four
her body no longer a map,
But a wounded manuscript,
Its pages torn and trampled beneath the feet of the state.

Her eyes are sealed with election-time promises,
her tongue buried beneath the daily news
No blood left there,
only ink soaked in advertisements.

Her thoughts are a dust-veiled scripture,
Rewritten each day by trembling hands.
Now, “civilisation” enters the cave of her womb,
carrying tenders in the name of reform.

At the edge of her sari, the Constitution stains her cloth,
But no article touches her skin.
They call her “Mother” on microphones,
But by night, she’s a body sanctioned by the state.

Mithila doesn’t yet know
ants are feasting on the shepherd’s brain,
The ones who claim to be thinkers, heirs of intellect.

Her violated body lies in the middle of the road,
while rusted gears churn in iron-clad parliaments.
Once again, Mithila is auctioned,
claimed by landlords in designer robes.

She is no longer a nation,
but a corpse of a language, heavy with memory.
Her torn scream breathes through the dust,
a whisper the wind tries to forget.

And I see her still,
In the pale haze of a dying afternoon
a face erased,
One that history rehearses, forgetting