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What would my mother write if she had money and a room of her own she would have written about all of this, without worrying...
Here’s an Ode to Virginia Woolf on Mother’s Day…
If my mother had had a room of her own I imagine or fancy That she would write about:
drying her long black hair, lying down on her khatia in the aangan of her house. Soaking in the sun, feeling the warmth grow in her scalp, millimetre by millimetre.
She would write about her nose pin which catches the eye of all that pass by this scene, Just watching her – lying there, enjoying the afternoon.
I imagine she would write about being the youngest child, surrounded by pampering brothers.
I imagine she would even write science-fiction, About a parallel universe where she would be married off without her consent and sent off at 18 to a stranger’s house to be a slave.
Where she would live to cook and clean for 25-30 people everyday.
Where she would be – Taught to keep her mouth shut, beaten, abused, suar ki bachi. Bitten. She would even watch her daughters be sent to the same fate, and eventually die from a broken heart from being abandoned by her children in her old age. Forgotten and discarded.
This parallel universe mother of mine would write all this I imagine. If she had a room of her own.
Image source: a still from the film Secret Superstar
Stuti is a queer-affirmative psychotherapist based in Mumbai. read more...
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