I was 16 when I read the story of Waris Dirie in Readers Digest. <You can read the story of Waris here > I almost threw up after reading about Female Genital Mutilation. It affected me so much that I started talking about it. This catapulted the aversion that I always had for any sort of inequality. I started talking about the atrocities against women caused by the patriarchal mind set. Not exactly an appropriate topic in a conservative society where life revolved around a church in the village. The prejudices that I saw around me looked trivial in comparison. But I couldn't accept the soft patriarchy of the protestant church as a compromise where women are considered equals in the society, encouraged to work, even ordained as priests in the church but would have to submit to the headship of a man at home. I was never a rude child but I could not fit myself into a role dictated by culture. I was weary of multiple masks. I wanted to be the same person whether I was at church, home, village, school or the nearby town. Once a teacher told me 'There is so much fire in you. But don't get burned' after reading my poems. I am not considered a rebel any more because things that mattered so much to people in my home town look trivial now - even to them . That phase did help me to move out of my comfort zone, explore a world outside and make my own choices.
I wrote this poem about FGM last Novemeber as a tribute to that intense emotion I felt many years back while reading the story of Waris.....
Blood coils around the desert plant
Like a serpent ready for its prey;
Dripping through the green leaves,
It glistens with a shameless sheen;
Darkness lunges with lust
And licks up the crimson stains;
The stains slide into its belly,
Deep, cold and hungry;
Crevices laced with tales of butchered Innocence,
The chapters of pain entwine,
It could be anyone and hence it was everyone;
There is a little girl lying under the bushes,
Waiting for her moment to come
Someone said that this would mark her ‘the woman’,
For a Prince who waits in a distant land
She saw a stone glinting in the afternoon sun
And the next instant it sliced her nakedness;
She bit on a root, her eyes slowly turning red
Heart beating with the familiar phrase
‘A woman’s sound should never be heard’;
Another savage blow and her petals were ripped
Punctured, squashed, and stitched
Flesh and blood mired with sand
Mocking that dry desert in a wet swamp
She laid there waiting for the darkness to come
‘When the sun shines back I will be a woman’;
Blood rushing to her head,
Shivering like a fish on land,
She laid there bidding her time
Blood coils around the desert plant
Like a serpent ready for its prey;
Dripping through the green leaves,
It glistens with a shameless sheen;
Darkness lunges with lust
And licks up the crimson stains;
The stains slide into its belly,
Deep, cold and hungry;
Crevices laced with tales of butchered Innocence,
The chapters of pain entwine,
It could be anyone and hence it was everyone;
There is a little girl lying under the bushes,
Waiting for her moment to come
Someone said that this would mark her ‘the woman’,
For a Prince who waits in a distant land
She saw a stone glinting in the afternoon sun
And the next instant it sliced her nakedness;
She bit on a root, her eyes slowly turning red
Heart beating with the familiar phrase
‘A woman’s sound should never be heard’;
Another savage blow and her petals were ripped
Punctured, squashed, and stitched
Flesh and blood mired with sand
Mocking that dry desert in a wet swamp
She laid there waiting for the darkness to come
‘When the sun shines back I will be a woman’;
Blood rushing to her head,
Shivering like a fish on land,
She laid there bidding her time
http://www.amazon.com/Trees-dirty-seeds-SAJITHRA-K-ebook/dp/B01BF6VL4G
