Jael Varma (Colours of Love and Barriers)

Jael Varma

Jael Varma holds a Master’s Degree in Mass Communication and presently works at a private bank as their Assistant Vice President. She runs a charitable cancer trust in her mother's name whom she lost to cancer. Varma survived Depression and PTSD. “I want to be a voice to the voiceless not because I have a voice, only because I know how it feels to be voiceless.  Poet. Dreamer. Survivor. Lover. I am You.”

Cruel Parody

When our Dalit sisters are raped, 

treated like worms, cut open, burnt, 

to be forgotten in the era of scrolling. 

How many more dead bodies will they burn?

Our city feminism is a fu**ing joke. 

When there are men who clean our

sewage with their hands, go home to feed

their children whilst their hands smell of 

our shit! 

Our dream of equality is a fu**ing joke.

When poor people had to walk miles,

when they can't afford two meals a day,

when they beg, borrow or hang. They die in shame.

Our Tv talks of drugs, movie stars are a fu**ing joke.

When our farmers dump their crops in

 the middle of the road. 

When screams, protests, suicides 

don't bother the government nor society.

Our economy is a fu**ing joke.

We post today, forget tomorrow.

We talk today, forget tomorrow.

We cry today, forget tomorrow.

We protest today, forget tomorrow.

We are all a fu**ing joke.

Adishakthi

I went to school 'alone' with an arrogance too much 

for a little girl. I saw my friend's

father dropping them off. I died inside

but I pretended to look away without a care.

They asked with a cruel childhood innocence,

 where is your dad? Hating them, I hurled at them, 

he is dead. Knowing very well he was 

smoking somewhere sipping his tea.

I grew up hating him, eventually as I grew up, 

I was turning into him. I cursed like him, 

flamboyant like him, flirty even when I normally conversed, 

ate Biryani with Gulab jamoon. My mother watched with terror.

I sat, walked like him. I stared at men exactly how

 he stared at women. Shamefully with a wicked grin.

 Intimidating them. Ruthlessly "rejecting" yet loving them,

 I guess I love like him, with wild abandonment.

I didn't grow up with a father, I grew up with an absent father but became him, 

my mother pleaded, cried, said; anybody but not him. 

But it was too late. Her pleas fell on deaf ears.

 Feudalism, Ingrained in my DNA. I became a feudal woman.

I spoke to him after years, he said he is dying to meet me, 

no, no living to meet me. He asked, how do you look? 

what are your ideas on life, men, books, politics? I told him with a stern tone; 

I shall never ever meet you. I want this longing for my poetry. 

Look in the mirror; you will see me.

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Colours of Love :: Setu, July 2022