Shackles and chains

The giant of giants
So massively strong
Living in India
How is that wrong
Some 30,000 wild souls
Now live
In the jungles there actually
And they do give

Their wealth and their freedom
Great families are they
But sadly too many are stolen
Away
Tortured and beaten and frightfully abused
Their spirit is crumpled
And they are misused

One such sweet darling
A fifty year old
“Lakshmi” laboriously
Clearly was sold
Into enslavement
A temple of god
Thiruvamdady along with a rod
Of iron she was beaten
Her heart broken by
A mahout who she angered
And who Blinded her eye

She ate up his vegetables
The story goes
He left them unattended
And of course they did pose
An opportunity for her to eat
And for eating his food
He gave her a treat

He beat her and beat her
And damaged her eye
Then poked his fingers
In it making her cry
She tried very hard to force her lid
To close
But they dug and they dug
And thats how it goes

Looking deep into her face
You could see
the white ball of damage
Feel that agony
The mahout he was sacked
And a new mahout came
Who is being gentle
But she is being shackled
And much is still the same

Her poor legs are sore from the rubbing
All day
Great pus filled sores
They are making her pay
So called temple wallers
Godly maybe
But her rigour and stress
They just do not see

The repetitive movements
Chafe as she tries
To hobble along
It is no surprise
Her wounds diabolical
Just share a while
The pain she is suffering
Is way off the dial

Whats wrong with man un kind
The godly suppose
They have their eyes
Somewhere near their nose
But they cannot see her
They dare not say
They let her get on with it
All through the day

22hours of shackle she be
Tripping and tropping
And she cannot see
In amongst the regalia the ritual
The noise
Its terribly frightening
What of her joys
What of her memories
What of her life
The struggle the pain
The unbelievable strife
The total frustration
The pitiless state
Thank goodness for Sangita Iyer
A date
With this women
Who tirelessly tries
To campaign and care for
Those without eyes

Those who are beaten
Shackled and hurt
Struggling onwards
Scraping the dirt
These great jungle lords
With their massive great weight
In what is often
a lamentable state

Unable to feed themselves
Damaged and lost
Umbrella rituals
Fire crackers that cost
So much to the sensitive sentient souls
Who must be so frightened
Led over the coals
A war zone of ritual
Unknowing such fear
For two complete days
It happens around here

They must be exhausted
These assignments are long
Despite their great strength
All this is so wrong
Their muscles are aching
Their vigour is low
The violence against them
How it does grow

Their languor their torpor
Their lifelessness shows
Passive and lumpish
Their indifference grows
So little space for them
Displaced are they
In the absence of true care
They are pining away

And what of their memories
Those days in the wild
The family the matriarch
Every wild child
The freedom to dip in the river
And roll
The momentum of all of that
Into their soul

And now the depression
The demotion they feel
The universe greets them
In the past they were real
A tangible life force
Respected and found
The concept of caring
From all those around

Some reawakening new energy
Rejuvenescence
If they could just be
Back in their minds eye
Where they did belong
Revived if you like
Part of the great throng