FGM

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

http://www.amazon.com/Trees-dirty-seeds-SAJITHRA-K-ebook/dp/B01BF6VL4G

To know about FGM: Wikipedia: