Prof. Malashri’s evocative poem on DifferentTruths.com captures a soul’s profound surrender and spiritual healing within the sanctuary of the divine.
The monastery is You
clad in gold
and raiment of yellow and red.
Your eyes hold me prisoner
and pierce further into my stygian heart
scarred by betrayals and battered by grief.
You urge my eyes to look around me
at the sculptures depicting
illness, suffering and death.
But you are smiling
and my heart is eased
in your gleaming Simplicity
Trying to erase my dreary darkness
I sink into a shashtang pranam
and surrender.
Picture design by Anumita Roy
Malashri Lal, a renowned writer and academic, retired professor, at the University of Delhi’s English Department, has published 24 books, including Tagore and the Feminine, The Law of the Threshhold: Women Writers in Indian English, and Betrayed by Hope, which won the Kalinga Fiction Award. Lal’s poems, Mandalas of Time, have been translated into Hindi. She is currently the Convener of the English Advisory Board of Sahitya Akademi. Honours include the prestigious ‘Maharani Gayatri Devi Award for Women’s Excellence’.
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