Lakshmi

This long piece is one of the poems written (and edited) by a participant in our project Making Memories in Oldham which ties reminiscence to everyday objects. This particular poem is paired with a divo, a light. The poem shares the same title as the goddess Lakshmi who brings luck and protests her devotees from sorrows, especially of the money-related sort. 

Lakshmi

when she grows, she goes

your daughter is never your own

given away in a wedding song

a little lamp

made of cotton raman divo

in Gujarati

they walk away with the lamp

daughter and groom

girl in front

mother passes the light to mother-in-law

when she grows she goes

a daughter is never yours

you'll give her away

raised for someone else

mother will pass the lamp

“Have brightness in yr new house”

a sad song at the end of the wedding

when your girl says goodbye.

Go and visit your parents

but you'll never be a little girl again.

Play it at weddings

you have to change with time and living

because home is where you are, not where you originate

what we teach is

light

at the end of the the wedding

the raman divo

passed from the girl's family to the boy's

a happy, sentimental moment

when a daughter is born she never belongs

to her father for long

given to her husband's family

there's a song in ours that puts it inside that

a reminder to the dad:

sasreye jata jojo papan na bhinjay,

dikari to parki thapan kahevay

means your daughter was never yours

don't show your tears

she was never yours from the start.

The song's finished, married and pregnant

at the month of seven we say shrimant

a blessing

for the child in the future;

now the baby comes

after fifteen days have a bath, wash everything

but you wouldn't come to temple

after forty days bring your child there

for blessing

when she grows, she goes

your daughter is never your own

given away in a song

people want sons to carry their name

but when a girl is born they say

we are wealthy in luck

lukshima is born, goddess

luck will look after us

ah, but luck

she was never ours from the start.

Anonymous

October 2013

Hindu Temple, Oldham