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A female foetus is murdered in utero, but pledges to come back through another womb, at another time, but still as a girl child. An incisive poem.
Securely I lie huddled in my mother’s womb Happily I dream Of the day I will place my tiny feet out On the face of this earth Of the verdant green Of the blazing sun Of the golden daffodils Whispering to me
Voices I hear Shaken I feel Unspoken words, unfinished tasks The edge of a steely blade The rigid contours of the human mind Scared and Appalled Is this the world I fathomed? Is this the world am destined to enter?
Slaughtered and butchered My tiny face puckers into a coverlet of tears The innocent me refuses to surrender To give up To die With the last of my effort I cry out to the unconcerned, cruel world Let me live Let me dream Let me not die
How I wish I were a male How I wish I could feel the pincers clutching on to my legs Pulling me out to witness the world of beauty, of glory Alas! I am a wretched female A wretched female I wish to be In my next life In the nine lives to come
Knives I see Blades I see Blood I see They deem me a stillborn I deem myself murdered and throttled I shall come back yet another day I shall come back through yet another womb
Thou shall see me fight and fight To make my sex known To make myself known To defy all odds And make you ponder How I wish I had let her live How I wish I had let her dream How I wish I had let her fly
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Published here earlier.
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Being a writer, Nivedita Louis recognises the struggles of a first-time woman writer and helps many articulate their voice with development, content edits as a publisher.
“I usually write during night”, says author Nivedita Louis during our conversation. Chuckling she continues,” It’s easier then to focus solely on writing. Nivedita Louis is a writer, with varied interests and one of the founders of Her Stories, a feminist publishing house, based in Chennai.
In a candid conversation she shared her journey from small-town Tamil Nadu to becoming a history buff, an award-winning author and now a publisher.
Nivedita was born and raised in a small town in Tamil Nadu. It was for schooling that she first arrived in Chennai. Then known as Madras, she recalls being awed by the city. Her love-story with the city, its people and thus began which continues till date. She credits her perseverance and passion to make a difference to her days as a vocational student among the elite sections of Madras.
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