Hazrat Mahal- The Begum of Awadh’s Freedom Struggle: Historic Women (Poem)
A woman of pleasure.
My parents sold me to the palace.
The men wore better clothes
But when those came off
They clawed the same.
I made sure I caught the king’s eye
Became Wajid’s girlfriend
At last, his wife.
Thank God! I had a son
Became queen
Like the fortunes of the mighty shift
So did mine, as Wajid’s’s shifted.
The British took our land
I pleaded with Wajid to fight
The limp dick.
They sent Wajid away
I wasn’t important enough to flick away.
I was thrice as old as my son
But he was triple me in importance
Becoming king
While I looked on.
I was king all but in name.
I dreamt of squashing the British
Like men squashed me during sex.
I sat on an elephant
In the battlefield
All the better to squash them
All the better for my people
To see their queen set an example.
They were too many though.
I didn’t understand their guns
Just that they killed better.
I ran, to fight another day
Ran backwards
So that I could keep fighting
My people came with me
I had 100,000 mouths to feed
But that is a queen’s duty
After all, it was only money.
My people paid taxes to me
This was just their return on investment.
Otherwise, what difference would there be
Between me and the enemy?
The British wanted to bribe me
Didn’t know no gold to buy
A woman with a heart of gold.
My friends buried me with that heart
Far away from my land
Sword in hand.
I came across this interesting woman’s life in an Indian feminist blog. Although I did some research online, not much is known about her. I wanted to imagine what it must have been like for this lone ranger, so I’ve tried to cohere her life in this poem. This was an assignment for the University of Iowa’s Writing from the Margins course. Here’s a poem I wrote on similar lines about Phoolan Devi, the Bandit Queen.
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