The Many Faces of She

She did not pose. She stood there staring at me like this as I turned the corner in village Khera, Jharkhand. I loved the fact that she stared at me as an equal.

She was insistent that I take a smiling photograph of hers. She is in the sweeping staff of Chennai Municipal Corporation.

She smiled at me every morning when I went for a walk in the outskirts of Mangalore. I love seeing the her moon-face in the background of the rising sun.

She gave up her house and the comfort of family to continue her mother's project--a school for girls in Sewagram. She is a living Gandhian, she weaves and wears only khadi, she grinds her flour, she eats sparsely, and she works hard.

She is a member of a woman's self-help group around village Paruthicherri in Thanjavur district, Tamil Nadu. Enterprising, smart, and confident.

When I saw her I wondered if I should touch her feet--she seemed so utterly Lakshmi to me. Somewhere in Jharkhand.

I saw them in Bhopal. They seemed like a bunch of butterflies making their way down the road.

I saw them seated under a tree in a village in Chattisgarh. The woman in the far-left corner in blue was sad her front teeth was broken.

I made them laugh. Somewhere near Misrikh in Uttar Pradesh. May they always remain laughing!

[And in the shadows of my heart, a sad stream flows: 

Yesterday Mother’s face was unveiled and she was welcomed to Earth with great joy. Today, on Mahasaptami day her maternal family celebrates the return of their loved daughter, Ma Durga and her children. 

I wish it were so for all women in this country when they return home to their mothers. I wish it was the most celebrated, the most joyous of all events in a year. I wish in her return, every woman surges in pride and joy that she is/was born a woman. You and I know this is not the case in India.

I struggle to see the positive, but sometimes I fail. Sometimes, you have to acknowledge when energy ebbs in a woman’s heart. Sometimes you have to acknowledge when you see that longing from beneath those long lashes. Sometimes you have to listen to the silence.

Gone is the spirit and the confidence of the girly days. Gone in that skip in steps, the adventure of spirit, the joy of knowing. Now there is waiting and awaiting for someone, something—the agony of womanhood.

Now it is the Other that frames you, encases your soul, directs your dream. Aah the greedy caterpillar did not turn into a butterfly—she turned into a community ant.

And yet, from behind the restrictions, the demands, the pressures, the heart glows in her own way and in the darkness of the night the silent woman recites a poem—about being a woman.]

Framed by Other

An awaiting

When you cease to be a butterfly and long for a nest

She whispered in the darkness of the night, "Didi, I write poems too" and recited a poem on being a woman.

 Being a woman is not an easy journey. Being a human is not an easy journey. May grace guide us always!