Don’t wear a dupatta today
Don’t today
Wear a dupatta
Walk in broad day light stark naked
sunlight
They will undress you
Undress you
with their eyes
They will Misbehave
Behave yourself
Clock moves around the same numbers
You only read it differently in different countries
This is India, it’s 9’o clock here
There
don’t go there
you should not
Fear
in the morning, Stage always has light, it is only dark
and quiet where the audience sits.
Are they looking
Look away
when eyes look at you
Lest it is understood as inviting
They grow like leeches grow on blood
So don’t give them blood
Blood blood
Oh there is a blood stain hide it
be more careful be more proper
be more
fem-i-nine
There will always be stains
Do wash them clean
Buy
Buy yourself a new blouse
Oh! this colour goes well with the
dupatta you left yesterday!
Glossary:
- Dupatta: a long scarf wore along with salwar kameez(suits) by South-Asian Women, it has various socio-cultural connotations; extension of women’s honour, respect and traditional modesty.
POET’s BIO
Kanika Sharma, is from New Delhi and is 24 years old. Having finished her Masters in English Literature from Hansraj College, University of Delhi, she is currently working on her dissertation on Sites of Cultural Politics: Studying Memorials as a Postmodern Space as an M.phil research scholar at Department of English, Jamia Millia Islamia. She also teaches English Literature at Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, University of Delhi. She understands poetry as a beautiful malleable form which can weave varied emotions, with just few words and strains. She works to achieve the same in her poems.
Illustration by Alan Van Every (Featured image on the front page)