Strictly speaking this is a song. Hundreds of non-literate women storytellers keep alive the oldest, richest, and liveliest traditions of poetry and story telling in India.

Ten months and ten days

Ten months and ten days
The mother dreams on ever,
I'll have a son I'll see him grow,
Now she's a daughter's mother.

The cruel Fates have sent her
At last a little daughter;
To an alien home she soon must go,
So weeps the daughter's mother.

It was mother's dearest wish
To keep the daughter near her,
Wed her to the boy next door,
But weeps the daughter's mother.

Your seven sons with seven wives
Can be with you forever ;
But a daughter stays as long as a dream,
So grieves the daughter's mother.

Mother weeps and father weeps,
So does the bride's brother;
For she goes away this very day
And breaks the heart of her mother.

A Bengali folk song

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