That she mist despise
The ordinary lives of women
Padherni women
Whose lives were limited
To their home
And who only went
As far as their padhera
Whose talk was limited to
Pee and poop of their children
To how to pluck saag
And how to kill the
Mice and cockroaches
Infesting their kitchen
Who would spend hours discussing
Their techniques of making
A simple cup of tea
And months perfecting
The art of pickling radishes
Disregard these women
She was told
They contain nothing of value
You must strive
To get out if the four walls
That contain these women
For your world lies outside
These narrow confines
And so she did
Believing
That to conquer the world
It is necessary
To despise
Women of that sort
But by then the world had changed
And she found that now
It was the men
Who despised such women
And got everyone else to despise them
That she was supposed to despise
Because the world
Of course
Rests on the shoulders
Of hard working women
And it is men who claim
To walk on water
Above the "filth" of worldliness
Believing themselves to be
Too good for
Ordinary domesticity
Who had obscured her vision
Upended the way the world is seen
And led her to believe
That their world
Was superior
To that of the householdy women
On her own
She learned to despise them
And now that she despises
The sum total of everyone
She knows
There is no one
Left to admire
No comments:
Post a Comment