A REALITY-CHECK!
No more is
a woman-writer
Doomed or
an individual crazed
No more has she to hide her art
Through
pseudonyms
Or in other
books
Mere poetry
she no more produces
But also
essays, diaries and novels
A sentence
she breaks
When she
wants to
Not because
she has to attend
To other
errands
As the
second-sex.
Today
multitudes of women are earning
And they do
have a room of their own.
But do they
have
A share in
maternal property?
Yes! But
only in the law-books
Ground-reality
differs.
A
male-companion’s shoulder
To rest her
head at?
Or a child
in her arms
To satisfy
her mother-instinct?
Not always
as by the time
Women
become self-sufficient
They have
outgrown
The
marriageable age.
They now have props
To satisfy
Their libido
They lack
the desire
To be an
angel in the house
The ‘new’
woman
Wants to
just earn
And
splurge
Adventure
is not a word
To classify
men alone
Time is to
rethink
And
reshuffle the binary oppositions
By the end
of the second decade of the 21st century!
WIDOWS OF PULWAMA
Their
hearts wrench with pain
They
hollered and howled
But reverse
could not
The mishap
in which they lost
Their
precious darling husbands
The widows
of Pulwama victims
Their
hearts wrench with pain
She was
promised a video call
That
evening –a small gain
In the
national bargain
The
one-to-one chat
But
ordained that was not
The news
that came the next
Was that
he’s blown into smithereens
Denied the
last glimpse
The horror-
unfathomable,
Unendurable
The widows
of Pulwama victims
Their
hearts wrench with pain.
Old
memories tug the aching heart
The
tinkling of her bangles reminds
Her the day
when he had tried to
Roll them
up her wrists
With
mischievous smile on his face
Tears roll
down her swollen eyes
Raising
sobs and snivels
The widows
of Pulwama victims
Their
hearts wrench with pain.
Money,
tributes and assurances
Can never
compensate the cataclysm
Still the
patriotism
The valiant
widow, nonetheless
Is all set
to make her sons
Follow
their father’s footsteps
The widows
of Pulwama victims
Their
hearts wrench with pain.
Those who
conspire - the rogues
Against the
nation ought to be
On the
gallows, not allowed to flee
Eliminated
at any cost, they be
Only that
will bring solace
And make up
for their solemn loss
The widows
of Pulwama victims
Their
hearts wrench with pain.
Dr. Sangeeta Sharma is a widely-published critic, poet and writer. In 2012, she authored a book on
Arthur Miller and another a collection of 76 poems in 2017. She has jointly edited fives anthologies on poetry, fiction and criticism. A free-lance journalist, she currently heads the department of English, B.K. Birla College of Arts, Science and Commerce (Autonomous), Kalyan, Mumbai Metropolitan Region.
Sangeeta deserves applause for her bold & sane view of the modern woman in her poem "A reality-check." And she deserves a hundred salutations for her powerful portrayal of the Pulwama aftermath ("Widows of Pulwama"), for blasting the pusillanimous attack on our (Indian) soldiers by the terrorist secessionists, for bowing to the war widows for their grit in encouraging their sons to be soldiers too..., without mincing her words. This is real feminism.
ReplyDeleteLoads of thanks, respected Atreya Sir!!
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