She was losing her strength every second; the pain was unacceptable. The ward was crammed with loud talking. Oh! she is going to be blessed with a child. A bright, vibrant ardour outside the door, brouhahas in the surrounding; each one was bright-eyed and looking at the sunny side. Suddenly, a ‘waa’ came from inside, and that noise gave everyone butterflies in the stomach. A carer with an infant wrapped in a swaddle stepped outside. “Congratulations! It’s a girl,” she said. Everyone turned quiet as a mouse; the zeal whirled into apathy. Everyone was disgruntled. This was the day of her birth.
At 6,
My mother taught me
“How to make tea.”
At 9,
My mother taught me
“How to sit properly.”
At 12,
My mother taught me
“How to make chapatis.”
At 13,
My mother told me
“You are not a girl now!”
“Worshipped as an epitome of the goddess for nine days, every year for 12 years of my life, she was shunned as impure in her thirteenth year.”
This was the most horrendous certitude of her existence. Awful cramps, the excruciating body pain, swollen eyes, mood swings—all were beyond endurance, fighting against that and shinning as a winner was the biggest defeat of her life.
At 15,
My mother taught me
To be ‘submissive and polite’; a woman has to be.
Hark your father and later your partner.
At 19,
The restrictions were killing her; yelping to fight.
At 22,
She was a name bearer, with hidden prospects, dying behind the brown door.
Buttered diligently in the bread of Patriarchy.
Maybe no ray will be visible in the coming years; a new life will start, but the eternity of the soul will diminish.
~
आँचल