She sits there selling bangles Set up in a wicker basket Some laid down on the grass Every now and then she gently Sweeps off the dust that spreads thinly From teeming feet that hurry past Barely slowing near the woman Sitting on her haunches hoping For someone to slow down, to pause Her concave belly almost touching The basket that is tugging The life blood from her womb Every time that she moves Spilling it in little driblets Onto its precious load
The maternal bond of glass and blood Unremitting, never enough As she sits car-caressing Sometimes fretting, sometimes fussing Rearranging, caring, loving Always loving, always loving A tender smile hov-hovering Around her tired mouth She is umbilical-corded To her treasures Resting in their bed of wicker Willing them to cleave their way Into the hearts of passersby Willing them to shine so bright That it brings tears to her eyes The boundless world of plenty In those bangles by her side
Behind her lie two little heads Heat-numbed and stupefied Little thumbs in little mouths Doing their best to pacify The endless hunger in their bellies Matured and rarefied Over lifetimes spent behind Their mother as she hums Little songs of gentle rain On golden fields of wheat and rye Watching their little sisters Take all their mother’s time Resting in their basket They tinkle and they wink They watch their little sisters Gleaming, laughing in delight Suckling on the joyfulness That streams from their mother’s eyes.
NB: Image is from the World Wide Web. Artist was not mentioned.
Eyes rheumy, ringed with grey Stare at me, stare me down But their old fire is gone Almost gone … age-worn I still shrink, but imperceptibly Outwardly there is no sign Of being pushed off the line Off my center, intimidated Bullied, silently hated For that time. Those eyes Still try to be Windows to his reflection of me Disappointing, different, so unlike The version I should have been
I look back at him Even as I feel my own agitation Silently Pull at my edges, wringing at them Helplessly, I don’t want the drama I’m too old for that now He’s older but he doesn’t see The futility, the lovelessness, This rejection of me I look away, back at my book Quiet, stoic as calm as can be Inside another little piece Of closeness, affection, familiarity Breaks off into the grey-ringed void Of distances spanning an eternity.
(This piece is about body image issues that so many women face especially as they get older. It takes a lot of character and guts to not let the negativity get to you. Again, this objectification is a product of our chauvinistic environments).
You’ve put on weight, wait! Does this mean that you’re eating too many sweets Or could it be that you’re finally getting old Old, rolled, holed into the box That’s been built for you, no u-turns Nothing you can fox your fading way out of You’re done. Stay in the shadows, woman Know your place Face the truth of tradition Perdition Hard-wired into your being, your biology Know your place Or we’ll remind you Laughingly, ribbing along the line Where we can jest or malign
I’m caught off guard, but I’ve also been Wrought, fraught, taught To feel bad for feeling bad To smile wide Wide enough to swallow his sin and my own hurt My eyes scrunch up, almost close Those windows to my soul Beclouded, beclogged, becloaked Lest the world see the state of my heart He feels bad for an instant, he reneges Laughingly, now ribbing across the line I feel worse that he feels bad My smile widens until I can feel it cut into my skin His sin and my guilt doubled Lancing at my face, etching unnatural lines Into furrows that make me look Comic, demonic, they take their pick On the day they feel a rage Righteous, man-ifold and brave That they then spill into the ruts Of my shame-shambled face.
But you have to wed There is no other way Unless of course I’m dead He’s family, my sister’s son Your cousin You’ve known each other Since forever Yes, he used to be my brother! LIKE a brother when you were little He’s not your brother Don’t say these bizarre things ‘Bhai hai! Khair hai, chai bana lo’ That wasn’t said so long ago By you mother, ammi, ammini, enemy
That was then and this is now I have a child Sing, drums play for you A son is born, sing! My child, so beautiful Come down sing drums play for you Sing drums play, come Down-sing-drums Play for you, come Down-Syn-Drums Play for you, come Down-syn-drome Pain for you, come, come down….
This is now and how it shall remain My child, golden Beautiful, so beautiful So angry, so tearful And also so dry-eyed, so agonized So angry all the time He screams again I close my ears sometimes I disappear now and then I look away from his little head Swollen with tears, angry, unshed
But I had to wed There was no other way He was family, her sister’s son Now my son my son, my beautiful, broken son There was no other way I had to become the bride Unless of course I had died.
Dirk: A bayonet or a knife. A generally cut-throaty thing.
She can either be an axe-wielding shrew Or a damsel in distress The rainbow between The two states of being Is ephemeral, the stuff of delusions Mirages and wild fantasy She can only be one of those things That nebulous, pearlescent intervening realm Rests in the shadows, forgotten Un-remembered, un-loved It sits in between The shrinking violet and she who staggers Hands full of daggers In the precipitous crags Of no-man’s land
The woman, that grande dame Living in the iridiscent silver sweep Of grace, softness and strength Connecting to the very cosmos itself Reposing in the upraised hand Of Mother Nature, she has a plan She’s not distressed and she’s not a man She’s all woman, passionate, warm She can move mountains She can whip up storms She’s also gentle and wise She’s the one who ties Fathers and daughters and sons In shimmering forever bonds She defines The very ethos of humankind
But she is a fairy, she’s unreal She lives in this other realm So close yet out of reach, and in this Our world she can either be A timorous tea rose or a mannish gal And so she has picked a side The flinty hoyden resides In her everyday garb She charges into streets She advances down corridors of corporate intrigue She launches strategic assaults Against her womanhood, her essence Her femininity To keep her wellbeing even-keeled
Sometimes … sometimes When the primordial instinct kicks in She yearns For her softness, her bliss For the profoundness Of being a woman But that fleeting notion Scatters with the burgeoning of the day Burdening her day She severs the thread, casts it aside She becomes, for the thousandth time A spiny, dirking porcupine And that is how she will stay.
I saw a tree lean in the wind Its leaves tearing, bolting ahead To sate the squalls that pulled at them I thought of you Of my blood careening in my head My limbs convulsing for release My lips struggling to appease The ego that would sunder me I saw the tree lean and lean I heard its leaf-tortured scream My insides churned with the memory I turned away I couldn’t stay And watch nature take my dismal tale Rinse it, recycle and repeat.
I can wake up on the wrong side Of the bed today I can let gravity pull at all my happy curves My smile, my feet that skip My stoical nerves I can despair today I can stare At myself in the mirror for an hour today I can have conversations with her today Openly, honestly Or maybe not I can look away while I sit In front of her looking at me It’s that kind of a paradoxical day Full of contrariness, of rights and lefts Downs and ups, shakes and nods Of sunny dawns and 8am thundery skies Of bewildering vibes and double negatives Of not being entirely unhappy with things Not unstill … but still, not entirely still
The kind of day that hugs you tight Holding you in the hollow of her hands And the next moment thrusts you away With a flick of her wrist. You’re stranded. Alone I look in the mirror trying to decide Whether I want to fret or if I want to fight Stew in my head or go at it The daedalean knot loosens bit by bit
F-i-s-t-i-c-u-f-f-s, a k—ick to the ribs Right-into-the-leathery-heart-of-things
I wage it out in a phantasmal bout Unfailing precision, all contact bulls-eyed Unfettering, releasing with every strike I’m Bruce Lee and Catwoman rolled into one Nothing’s enough. I go all out Riding the bracing rush of my blood Piercing through the eye of the storm
It’s Over, It’s All Done The Battle Within Has Been Won
I take in a breath Deep. Freeing. An all-organ sweep Another breath, reviving, serene The contrariety for today Has been washed away or dry-cleaned Either way By machinations of the mind On battlefronts designed On psychogenic frontlines Or laundromats for bruises and stains Either way, one way or another On the inside, the rumble is done I look into the mirror again Into the quiet depths of her eyes The morning rain has played its song The world is a patchwork of dappled sunshine The lingering clouds are peaceful, unrushed Like the gentle pulse of her bloodstream For a few moments in the mirror today Her tranquillity was in disarray But she can’t despair, not today While the universe around her winks and gleams.
I see my shadow lengthen With the ebbing of the day I feel it suck up all the sadness From the bowels of the earth With its purple, glistening hoard Of melancholia and hopelessness I move ceaselessly, restlessly I will my never-stopping feet To sever the tortured bond That my swelling shade has formed With the darkening world around But my shadow just spreads out Ever further on the ground It suckles at night’s dreary breast Absorbing all her suffering So that nothing should remain In earth’s mighty store of pain With its ravening tentacles My twilight shadow reaches in Never faltering in its aim It will not stop it will not rest Until it has gorged itself On a sorrow that is infinite It’s bloated edges Endlessly dredge The gloom from earth’s wounded veins My shadow ripples and it writhes Waning only when daylight Breaks the tragic coupling Of the shades and sadness of nighttime.
This is about all the women who are killed in the name of honour or privilege or archaic customs. Women like Mukhtaran Mai who was gang raped as per the ruling of the local jirga or court of the elders of the community. And Qandeel Baloch who dared to be bigger than the box she was born in and paid for it when her brother whom she financially supported, killed her in cold blood.
PART ONE: Pin me, skin me Kick me in my shins please Bring me buckling, crashing down Then grin as you haul me up Dust me down, make an act of freeing me When I’ve lost all my will to be me
Churn me, burn me Laugh in my face, spurn me Then adulate, adore me But airily, lightly Politically-correctly When I can’t feel your torment or love Or anything else inside me
PART TWO: Juice me, use me Mangle and abuse me Then write up columns flush with New found awakening A social issues deciphering All the while computing, Measuring, forecasting Your own index of hero-worship For calling out brutality Other demons, other sins Out of your realm of reality But you orate and preachify Because it is your deliverance From mundaneness, insignificance
Roar out, be devout Let your new found arousal Wash over everyone “Not all of us are like that” Shout it out, don’t hold back Declare it with panache You are righteous no one can forget Everyone else’s moral compass Is a fickle sickle, directionless You’re guilt free with that homily With your ringing voice and sacchrine smile You present it proudly to me When all I can see are lips and eyes A Leviathan dripping honeyed lines Onto a transfixed audience They watch and gently chew the cud Of the weed that they are fed By evangelical heroes of prime time
PART THREE: Boot me, loot me Strangle me, shoot me Then have a ball in my name Found a charity, earn some fame Let the posthumous heroine With her tomb-tough shoulders Become your newest Taj Mahal Let her catapult you to the top Always from her deadest parts A pillaged body, a spirit crushed A tragedy censored and hushed From her countless cuts and gashes She now hides under her eyelashes While YOU and YOU and YOU and YOU Rise like a phoenix from her ashes.
There’s something in the air In the way it moves around The living and the dead It carries a new sound Alien and profound It bleeds in and it seeps Reaching further than skin deep
There’s something in the breeze It has much to say In mystifying whispers The strange leaning of the trees In the writhing of the leaves Detaching from their seams By off-season guillotines Shimmer-sharpened by the breeze It moans against the skin In tongues we now don’t speak In tormented suffering But all that we can see Is the stirring of the blades In their darkened canopies
There’s something in the air A blinding glitter everywhere But the motes of light are still While a cosmic storm prepares A million miles away Thickening, darkening Marking time until It comes crashing, smashing in Sweeping us all in Its alpha and omega waves In beginnings and endings And lips everywhere Will be spilling the same prayers As with our souls bared We fuse, we unify With something new in the air.
I wish this verse was more wholesome and whimsical like Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, but that it is not. This is about women determinedly forging on across streets, bazaars, workplaces, government offices, neighbourhoods and communities. This verse is also not so much about the woman hopeful of change (God knows that’s going to take its time in our blessed homeland), but the woman who is stoic and steadfast. It is the woman who goes about her day despite the odds that pull at her body, spirit and soul. It is the woman who dares to bare her true self despite and in fact because society expects otherwise. It is the woman who walks in her neighborhood afraid yet brave. May you find your grit and your grace for the rest of the days of your life.
A resolute, meaningful Women’s Day to all my friends and family 🌺
I wear my track pants And a pink shirt, long It says “Life is a song” I wonder if it’s too loud Stoking thoughts like a gong A shout To the world of men that teams about The streets Eyes peeled For glimpses of variously clad Women that are mad Enough to sidle into the periphery of their sight And special leery gazes Trained like full-throttled tasers On women who dare To bare More than the hand wrist down Or a smidgeon of a toe around Which sits an uncomfortable sandal A Soleful reminder To walk cautiously To always look behind her To shrink as small as she is able So she might pass With a warning glance From the men sitting around Jenetic Judges of right and wrong
For the women who dare To bare There’s a special gaze For their fall from grace From the fraternity that mills about The corners of streets Superior, upright Pissing in plain sight Marking their territories For the women who dare to bare More than the eyes Downcast, demure Vacuous and pure For them there’s the death stare Cutting them down to size I’m one of those Who - Dares - To - Bare The woman within The whole human being Self assured, aware She sits in my eyes Unfaltering, dignified Even as her heart drums inside As she traverses that den Of wolves, dressed as men.
There’s a shop down the street Where you can buy consciences Gentle pin pricks around your heart For when you want to sense something For when you want to feel A tiny paper cut, a delicate weal Most times you buy a numbness though Cloaked in velvety greys and yellows They’re tailor-made to fit around Your never-racing, constant heart And your ever-racing, chasing mind The greater you can muster Put down on the counter The finer the swaddle To enshroud your qualms To feel the vaguest of twinges Of right and wrong When to see and when to be Sightless, without sound Unconscious, uncurious, asleep In the thick, creamy fabric Numbingly, comfortingly bound Gut-driven compass buried deep Six feet below the ice and the snow The tsunamis, the floods and the hurricanes The droughts, the disease, the misery Interred in darkness, entombed underground In the meantime there’s a shop that sells Custom-built, free-of-guilt scruples in town.
Mahvash Mohtadullah 