Skip to main content

"Stayfree" in "whispers"

There are days when I don't want to be a woman,
No, don't you get confused,
I take pride in who I am.
I take pride in all those abstractions which make me a human
Yet, as I said, there are days...
Days when you spend life like an untouchable.
Separate plates, separate beds, restricted entries, restrictions on what you eat and breathe!
They say I have Brahmin blood,
They say it right perhaps but I smell diplomacy
For I don't see what sets me apart! I don't smell purity
I rarely offer prayers, I sing no hymns
I don't seek God in idols.
When did my realisation found home?, you may ask.
I was 11 when I became a woman.
"Sit like a girl, act like a girl, think like a girl ", that became my birthday jingle .
I had bled one night and I thought I had got hurt
I expected them to take me to a doctor
I was thrown into a dark room instead
" Don't look at males ", pronounced my granny
" Why? ", my voice echoed
Because you no more are a girl, you are a woman!
When did I become one? , a voice in my head wanted to know.
For my limbs hadn't grown overnight, nor had I incurred any special sign!
I didn't know that my body parts carried shame.
Mounds of flesh needed to be hidden under layers
Boys no more fitted as team mates
Adventures suddenly found no room.
I felt I was cursed, cursed to be a woman!
As I outgrew my sleeves, I couldn't outgrow my shame
I always had a lurking fear that
Peering gazes would rip me as I crossed streets
I had to be careful, careful enough to avoid mistakes
I couldn't be at temples, couldn't be at rituals
I was an untouchable and so were the rest who bled
"Stayfree" came home in "whispers"
Freedom, life's greatest irony.
Yet, I saw hoardings which celebrated womanhood.
There were slogans which glorified motherhood.
And yet, there you would find a girl in every street
Holding her breath in terror as she crosses streets,
If this is what takes it to be a woman,
I don't want to be one.
I don't want to be glorified
I don't want anything that sets me apart as a woman
If I want anything for me or girls around me
Is to bleed in peace
To live in peace
For this isn't what restricts us as woman
We didn't choose it, rather it chose us.

And...

My "Stayfree" no longer comes in "whispers"!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Checks and balances of life!

I wasn't always who I am today. It took a lot of courage to break past my shell. Oscar Wilde  had once stated that knowing what you want to be in life becomes a curse because you invariably become that but not knowing is liberating, there are endless possibilities of who you can become. I too didn't know who I was going to be. Today, I realise it was liberating. I never knew i could find my voice some day. Now that I feel liberated,it becomes difficult to remain confined. We need to grow, evolve into better beings each day. We need to grow past the "checks and balances" of life. I remember Fuller here,  Fuller has asked us to be a part of a process of this evolving planet. He wants us to be "verbs" not "nouns"!  Here is a tale of an introverted me who knew not what to expect from life .  ....... I would talk less at school, not attend socialising events, avoid looking at stranger's eyes while on the road. In short, I wanted to be invisible to t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sea (ii)

"I want to see a setting sun", I told him as we sat in the shack looking at the bright sun gleaming over the waves. "Sure, let's not move anywhere", he readily jumped over the idea. We talked about everything that we had anticipated all along, this trip, our future together, family back home as we nonchalantly waited for the sun to set. It was only when the waiter brought a lamp to our side when I noticed that we had missed the whole idea of viewing the sunset! "Phew! I don't see the sun", I yelled out alarmed "laa", I heard him say. " Well, isn't it good that we can again come back tomorrow and sit in the same spot waiting for the sun to set", he remarked. Well, this is what I like about him. His ability to look at the positive side of life. Well, if not a sunset, we saw a pale moon's silvery gleam over those tall waves. We laughed and talked over endless cups of tea and food. While it was time to leave the shore, we di...
Post a Comment
Read more

Home in the mountains

 The tiny mountain lights showed me home, Home: a fluid entity which marks no land. I opened my palms to feel the chill and yet I felt it's warmth in the way it held my gaze Unfaltering, of a different magnitude. I don't belong to the hills and yet A part of me was always here waiting, For me to claim my roots. And thus those lights,led me   home.
Post a Comment
Read more