My beloved, one day
you saw me
and I saw you
And—
You heaped on me
the red sun rising in your life.
With the paint on the parting of my hair
you drew a picture of your essence.
The tika on my forehead
became a mirror for you.
My red cheeks
were for you your entire universe.
And from that day onward I lost myself
and became your bride in red.
With the red bead necklace
our lives got entangled.
Thus we became one
and I began to love redness.
Red! Red! Red was my good fortune.
Even with your departure
I embraced the blood-like red.
Indeed I have grown most fond
of the beauty of blood.
That blood which is like the vermilion
you sent to me as your wedding gift.
So I have treasured it,
welcomed it and followed it.
Now forever in the dream for red
these footsteps have reached their end.
With the last breath on this earth
I ask for a red revolution.

Rashmi Rajya Laxmi Shah, daughter of renowned poet and artist Balkrishna Sama, was a full collaborator along with her husband Jagat Prakash Jung Shah to the anti-Rana democratic movement led by the Nepali Congress. After Jagat Shah was killed in action during a revolt against King Mahendra’s government in 1962, Rashmi Rajya stayed in Calcutta as refugee. Son Naveen Prakash Jung Shah recalls that it was only after the death of her husband that she fully adopted the red insignias of a married woman. The poem above was written sometime before she committed suicide a day before Teej of the same year.