Though died young, John Leyden (1775-1811) as a man is of different sorts, a philologist, a linguist, a professor, a poet, a judge  and a physician too, all in one.  A Scottish Indologist he is superb as for friendship with Dr. Robert Anderson and Dr. Alexander Murray. It is really worthy of going through his poetry which he wrote years ago.

When we read the poem, Written at The Island of Sagur, In The Mouth of The Ganges, in 1807 hairs stand on the body and speechlessly stand we to think of the inhuman, atrocious social evils which have nothing to do with logic and reasoning. How were the times? How old and obsolete were our thoughts and ideas? Was here no great man to check it? Was there none to correct and punish the erring ones? How were our blind faiths? Were we so superstitious, so blind? Was it as for black magic, hocus-pocus? Was it we were ethnographic and indigenous? Was it we were idle and fatalistic?

Was it that we trespassed in going beyond? Did we cross the borderlines as for rites and rituals in being pure and spiritual? An experimentation with faith and strong belief in divinity rather than supernatural and spiritual powers misled us. We committed sins.

The Ganga is definitely holy, but it does not want anything as for its otherwise worship. So is Kali. If she represents the awesome and the supernatural, the fierce and the dreadful, she does not ask us to make sacrifices for. An  image of Kali is just a picture and we need to keep ourselves in balance. 

Patriarchy, male domination and conservatism and orthodoxy too have wreaked havoc as for gender discrimination and differences and as a result of this mentality, womankind has suffered in the worst way, bearing the wretched lot. 

How did the evil practice creep in? Was it for poverty and illiteracy? Was it for backwardness? Was it as for the loot and plunder of India?

The Sagar must not be misconstrued. For to please the Ganga Mother Goddess is not to appease her in a blind and inhuman way. The poet records what he saw it there. The girl baby is not a curse. Why was this monstrous custom prevalent among? Why could the holy men not oppose the evil and monstrous practice?

Written at The Island of Sagur,
In the Mouth of The Ganges, In 1807
by John Leyden (1775-1811)

On sea-girt Sagur's desert isle,
Mantled with thicklets dark and dun.
May never moon or starlight smile,
Nor ever beam the summer sun I
Strange deeds of blood have there been done,
In mercy ne'er to be forgiven;
Deeds the far-seeing eye of Heaven
Veiled his radiant orb to shun.

To glut the shark and crocodile
A mother brought her infant here:
She saw its tender playful smile,
She shed not one maternal tear ;
She threw it on a watery bier :—
With grinding teeth, sea monsters tore
The smiling infant which she bore : —
She shrunk not once its cries to hear !

Ah ! mark that victim wildly drest.
His streaming beard is hoar and grey.
Around him floats a crimson vest.
Red flowers his matted locks array. —
Heard you these brazen timbrels bray?
His heart-blood on the lotus-flower
They offer to the Evil Power ;
And, offering, turn their eyes away.

Dark goddess of the iron mace,*
Flesh-tearer ! quaffing life-blood warm,
The terrors of thine awful face
The pulse of mortal hearts alarm.---
Grim power ! if human woes can charm,
Look to the horrors of the flood,
Where crimsoned Ganga shines in blood,
And man-devouring monsters swarm.

Skull-chaplet-wearer! whom the blood
Of man delights a thousand years.
Than whom no face by land or flood.
More stem and pitiless appears.
Thine is the cup of human tears.
For pomp of human sacrifice
Cannot the cruel blood suffice
Of tigers which thine island rears!

Not all blue Ganga's mountain-flood.
That rolls so proudly round thy fane,
Shall cleanse the tinge of human blood,
Nor wash dark Sagur's impious stain: —
The sailor, journeying on the main,
Shall view from far the dreary isle.
And curse the ruins of the pile
Where Mercy ever sued in vain.

• Kali.

Let the bluish, crystal water of the Ganga be blue. Defile you not with your sin. This is the message the poet wants to give. Kali cannot be as such. Try to correct your notions and beliefs.