Why do we talk about women’s rights?
When shall we consider them human rights?
Why do we put up with a man
who calls a woman “disgusting”
when she wants to extract from her body
the precious fluid that helps her baby think and thrive?
Albert Einstein said we should never stop asking questions,
but if he had been a woman,
her statement might have been trashed.
When little Rita died, her anemic Ma cried,
This eight-year-old was the quietest
Of the big quarreling brood.
Always caring for me and others,
Bringing leftovers from the families
Where the child ceaselessly worked long hours,
Her slender back broken by the labour of two adults,
Now she is no more, my precious child!
What will I do now?
Who else will do her chores?
She brought a few hundred rupees in our unlit hovel
We are poorer by those few hundreds.
Another rugged woman muttered,
Grieve not, sister Sita,
Your second daughter is finally free
From regular beatings by her drunk father,
And hunger and possible multiple rapes
By the rich slumlords and others in eternal wait.
The poor child is free at last!
And gone to heaven, we all hope so,
The poor are the favourite of God,
So the holy books say.
But we, the graying women
Are still hapless prey
To the male lust and power
That makes us cower,
In impoverished homes.
Do not
stifle the voice
of the matriarch
for years
we waited
from corners
in kitchens
on
our knees
listen to
the voice
of the mother
sister niece
daughter wife
her burdens
are yours
she is
human too.
The two of us, my co-worker and I
busy at our computers.
John took out his cell.
“Have to call THE wife, won’t take long.”
“What? “You want to call THE wife?
My surprise meant nothing to him.
At 59, he was very much “old school.”
Was he or I the fool?
My young wife had she been there,
She would have told John calmly
that using the word, THE, today,
was indeed rare,
and pejorative.
It lowered her to a “possession.”—
an object “his” property.
John was baffled,” but, but,
I love my wife…
She is my whole life.
My own wife, having recently
returned from the “Women’s March”
could have explained it all.
Would John have understood?