Dark Vermilion

Dressed up in her new attire,
Flowers on her hair,
Bright red,
Vermilion.
She wanted to visit the temple for the festival,looking her best.
Shining in her simplicity.
The vermelion saree,the vermilion bindi.
A beautiful red jaba on her hair,
Painted her feet red with a fragrant alta.
Floors stained red.
Her instinct immediately alarmed her mood.
She ran to the washroom.
Her wet alta stained her home here and there.
Her sudden cramps,
She realised it was the time.
The only vermelion that was left to stain her attire.
Blood in between her thighs.
Dark vermelion.
She bled and thought,
Can the god,the greatest power people believe in,
The power they believed to have created everything.
Can that supreme power want to keep her away just because of something that she herself gave her?
The power to hold and create life?
Her blood and the vermelion on her feet mixed in the floor,
She watched it spread like the watercolor on a handmade paper.
One question after another,
Growing like the unruly stems of a plant in her mind.

Will it really be a sin to attend the puja?
To go to the temple?
Are they aware?
Or they are still ignorant?