Sleeping Beauty on Indian Celluloid
You star in its desi remake,
your father has a fox trot,
a French beard. Not crude
country bumpkin, just cruel.
Princes who come riding
to seek your hand return
without legs. Not dead,
just dressed as deterrents.
You try suicide to sleep off
such horror. Coma gifts you
a lover, carrying him over
on a crow’s wing.
You give yourself to this man,
like you are giving yourself to rain.
Love lights up like lightning
and you scream in sleep.
Your father’s abuses arrive
like thunderstorms. Driven
to incessant doubt, he gives up
his ghost with a cardiac arrest.
Taking your best friend’s help
you trace your lover through
Facebook. Your story ends up
on a clapboard.
The director names you Usha;
sunrise. You are something
the world has never seen,
he says and reveals that
The lover’s role is played
by a politician’s grandson.
You are convinced
this is your big break.