been mute.
Not that we're dumb, or our
tongues had been cut out. Not
quite. We could prattle alright:
about recipes, about dust,
about our neighbour's daughter,
about our clothes, secrets about
how to stay beautiful, how to
stay young. We knew nursery
rhymes which we lisped to our
children, but never the dark
interiors of those stories, those
lay shrouded in sleep like the
Sleeping Beauty. Yes, we were
sleeping beauties, baby dolls,
we slept while our children
were branded with seals of ownership,
our names taken from us, we smiled
while others filled in forms for us,
others made laws which ruled our
lives.
Yes. We were dumb,
except when we cried, which
was often; when we were ravished
as young girls, by strange, brutal men,
when we bore children, and delivered
them
in the agony of childbirth. When our
husbands
our fathers, our brothers and our sons,
and even our lovers, if we dared have
them,
struck us and betrayed us,
and sold us and wounded us.
We dreamed of gentle hands and
loving words,
for were we not the soil filled with
the ache
of longing for the seed, but instead we
were
coarsely used, our bodies brutalised,
our souls numbed.
And even our mothers denied us.
In the hour of darkness, they
cut off our hair, shaved our heads,
burnt us on the funeral pyre,
burnt us in our homes.
Our brothers inherited the earth.
We were disinherited of even our
smallest
shreds of humanity, the day we were
born.
Our parents cursed us. They educated
our brothers, gave them the land
and the houses, and the future,
and the power and the glory.
We were married off, we were mere
pieces of property, passed from one
family
to another, to work and bear children,
or. if we didn't bear children,
to be cursed for our barenneas.
No one looked into our eyes with love.
If they had, they'd have heard our souls
talk.
Instead, all they said was
She's hysterical. Women are like that,
especially when they menstruate,
especially
when they stop menstruating,
especially as they approach death.
Not that we're dumb, or our
tongues had been cut out. Not
quite. We could prattle alright:
about recipes, about dust,
about our neighbour's daughter,
about our clothes, secrets about
how to stay beautiful, how to
stay young. We knew nursery
rhymes which we lisped to our
children, but never the dark
interiors of those stories, those
lay shrouded in sleep like the
Sleeping Beauty. Yes, we were
sleeping beauties, baby dolls,
we slept while our children
were branded with seals of ownership,
our names taken from us, we smiled
while others filled in forms for us,
others made laws which ruled our
lives.
Yes. We were dumb,
except when we cried, which
was often; when we were ravished
as young girls, by strange, brutal men,
when we bore children, and delivered
them
in the agony of childbirth. When our
husbands
our fathers, our brothers and our sons,
and even our lovers, if we dared have
them,
struck us and betrayed us,
and sold us and wounded us.
We dreamed of gentle hands and
loving words,
for were we not the soil filled with
the ache
of longing for the seed, but instead we
were
coarsely used, our bodies brutalised,
our souls numbed.
And even our mothers denied us.
In the hour of darkness, they
cut off our hair, shaved our heads,
burnt us on the funeral pyre,
burnt us in our homes.
Our brothers inherited the earth.
We were disinherited of even our
smallest
shreds of humanity, the day we were
born.
Our parents cursed us. They educated
our brothers, gave them the land
and the houses, and the future,
and the power and the glory.
We were married off, we were mere
pieces of property, passed from one
family
to another, to work and bear children,
or. if we didn't bear children,
to be cursed for our barenneas.
No one looked into our eyes with love.
If they had, they'd have heard our souls
talk.
Instead, all they said was
She's hysterical. Women are like that,
especially when they menstruate,
especially
when they stop menstruating,
especially as they approach death.
*****
Copyright. Anna Sujatha Mathai
(First pub in Life - on my Side of the Street.
Sahitya Akademi. 2005.)
(First pub in Life - on my Side of the Street.
Sahitya Akademi. 2005.)
