Getting down, bare-foot head-covered
To sit cross-legged for ritual-worship
Lighting the butter-dipped wick of cotton
And incense swung before sculpted idols
A young Hindu girl floats in the ambience
Of an imagination aflame with an aura
Hallowed by ancient vedic verses heard
Over un-ageing vistas of human glory
Being agnostic doesn’t have a quarrel
With her choosing to respect the wishes
Of her parents for her faith forbids her
Not to wreck their faith but to respect it
Her choice of non-belief has not choked
Her emotional reserves nor cabined her
Mind nut and bolt but with open mind
Brood over the unpredictable universe
Of feeling and sensation and think deep
And thus to arrive at where she began
To grapple with intuitions of communion
