While Aruna Slept

Sleep came to her like the pleasant-loud bustle of daily life.
She slept, long before her eulogies were written.
Long before judiciaries failed her.
Before her living became a debate
Around death by choice.

 
She slept through decades of India’s upheavals and reforms,
While hundreds of women succumbed to her fate.
And a hundred others fought on streets.
She slept, elegantly indifferent to lives like hers.

 
She slept through her fiance’s wedding ,
And through Sohanlal’s  trial and release.
She couldn’t cry foul on either occasions.

 
She slept through Nirbhaya’s fate on December 16^th.
Maybe she smiled. Maybe she felt unlucky.

 
Her sleep saved her national curiosity around her underwear’s colour.
And the precise inches of penetration.
It saved her the usual embarrassment of the unusuality of sodome.
That way, you can say she slept in peace.

 
Now that she is dead, you can finally write her eulogies.
Finally, pray for a soul that was long gone.