Namelessness of the one with a thousand names

“Few tasks are more like the torture of Sisyphus than housework, with its endless repetition: the clean becomes soiled, the soiled is made clean, over and over, day after day.”

― Simone de Beauvoir

I wash everything

I scrub it clean

along with the vessels

the vegetables

my consciousness

of any sense of me

I peel the skin

delicately

potatoes can also

look like hearts

to mad women

like me

Time looks like

a fine stainless steel grater

I grate my ego

fine, finer

so that all

my questions die

your love sharp

like a shining knife

I chop, chop,chop

my self in to

smaller pieces

so that of my "I"

remains no sign

Now I knead

mix it, dissolve it

add more water

that will bind it fast

to make a stiff dough

of tradition

against which I punch

my knuckles

till they hurt,never bleed

the oil heats like

my simmering soul

In the wok of your

grand celebration

I deep fry

the remains of 

my hard work, pride

self-worth and name

The festive feast 

for your Devi

Venerate, celebrate her

who isn't nameless like me but  

who has a thousand names* !

* Durga- the Hindu deity is believed to have a thousand names

Why Complain?

There is an iron mold

hard, stiff and cold

they all have to fit in

goddess, bitch, 

wife or whore

each in their own frame

and why complain?

they have the pedestals

the whore-houses

homes and tombs

what good is empowerment

 without a man

work for him ,birth progeny

provide pleasure

take his name

why complain?

Feminism is only

for the mad single women

who waste their lives

asking questions

in vain

you the good women

must be seen not heard

you the "devi"

the maa and the behan**

why complain?

*mother, ** sister but here used together to indicate sexist abuses in Hindi

NAVRATRI SNAPSHOTS 2015



•  A 40 years old, mother of two teenagers is distributing ice-cream sticks on the road near her apartment complex to street children. Some of them pre-teen and teenage boys, soon she is being pulled and groped and loud whistles and leering and she runs back inside the gated residential complex. The misguided kids enjoy the free ice-cream, aunty goes back to her condo, runs a hot bath and all that remains of the incident are the wrappers piled on the footpath.
  When we let go of any incidents as minor incidents of street harassment, don’t we pave way for far more dire incidents?
  What makes our boys believe they are entitled to rowdy behaviour ?Is our "Charity" misguided?

•  I am watching news, my little one who is unaware of the technical gross details of sexual violence and RAPE, knows the word and knows that it is a cruel and bad thing to do to anyone. She stops colouring and after overhearing bits and pieces of a debate over the rape of two minors, she asks, "Mumma why do people hate and hurt little girls , so much? " I have no convincing answers.

• In a neighbourhood Kirtan, almost every other song or line has the word "laal" (red), traditionally the colour for married women ( Saubhagyavatis), those singing these lines loudest are widowed mothers, sisters and wives , sitting in a corner away from the deity, the inauspicious women.

• Not far from the Indian capital two little children are charred to death because they were not fortunate enough to be born upper caste, we look away and feel we have done our bit for the future kids of this country by distributing a few plates of poori-halwa.

•P : Mumma we Indians are generally brown you said , because of our genes and race and ,and climate.

Me: Yes dear.

P: Then why are all the goddesses fair, other than Kaali?

Me: ahmm....

P: and why don't they make Kaali beautiful? If a woman becomes angry does she become ugly?

I have taken some time from her to answer these difficult questions.

SHAKTI

the statues they worship

and the legends they revere

are not gratuitous

in the fabled shakti

they hide the gruesome barter

of real women

paying the price

for the devi

to be worshiped.

the crimson is rich

from the blood

of unborn daughters

and of the

millions who 

bleed every day

or die unceremoniously

for the noble cause

of irrigating the 

harsh soil

of patriarchy !

The Moon

the moon
the moon is
is the moon

the moon looks lonely
the moon looks lovely

worshiped
poemised

the moon was
is,will be
the moon.