Tiny limbs smeared
with my fresh enflamed blood
oozing out of
the womb, gushing in fact.
I knew. I had lost you.Then and there.Shattered.
The
sadomasochist burped then, and snored
in a short
while, when the maid rushed us to
the local
hospital. I heard what you never uttered.
Ahh
heal ‘us’,protect ‘us’, you and me, me and you,
Mom
and her little girlie, wish to take the world in their stride.
Today, a letter
to you, my unborn daughter, after
longtwo decades
of quiet travail
telling our
tales to your younger brother,
with a bleeding
heart, I smile with exuding tears.
Smile to see my
dream daughter alive in
her brother
little; so full of love and compassion, so much a
feminist-humanist
male, so strong to hold Mom’s head high,
so much you, so as
I would have you.
Ah! There was
such rage over a female foetus
growing up to be
a girl of power and conviction, like Mom dear.
Or like the PanchaMahakanya. And the marital rapes,
the threats
to snatch you
any given day, if I dissent; and then the termination.
If at all there
is a next birth for you, my little fairy,
comeback come
back to my womb, life minus you is such dreary.
You need not
play the games that the heart must play.
Pronounce before
birth, you are not gonna be the woman of clay.
Like Ahilya,
never fall prey to Indra’s trickery; and if ever you do,
do it by your
choice, not anyone else’s, neither Goutama’s nor Indra’s.
Your penance
need not be broken by Lord Rama, the one who
judged his wife;
you need not regain your human form
by brushing his
feet. Remain that dry stream, that stone,
till you find a
way to my womb again, in another life, another Yug;
you need not be
condoned of your guilt, you never were ‘guilty’.
Let Indra be
cursed, castrated, concealed by a thousand vulvae
thateventually turn into a thousand eyes. Or like
Draupadi, take your
birth from a fire-sacrifice, be an incarnation of the
fierce goddess Kali
or the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi; but never be the
sacrificial goat
to accept five husbands just because someone else deliberated.
If any Yudhishtir
drops you at the Himalayas because you
loved Arjun more, look in his eyes and declare, loud
and clear--
it’s your right to live,love and pray. While never
deriding
theDuryodhan and Karn of your destiny, live laudable
my dear.
Nor Kunti be your role model; but if ever you propitiate
the sage
Durvasa, who grants you a mantra to summon
a god and have a child by him, then take his charge.
Don’t you recklessly test the boons life grants you by
haze
nor invite the Sun-god,Surya,give birth to Karna, and
abandon.
An unborn child is better than the one dejected,
forlorn.
Or if ever you are Tara, the apsara, the celestial nymph,
who rises from the churning of the milky ocean
be the Tara, Sugriva’s queen and chief diplomat,
the politically correct one, the woman in control of
herself
and folks around. In the folk Ramayans,
Tara casts a curse on Rama by the supremacy of her
chastity,
whilein some versions, Rama enlightens Tara. Be her,
the absolute.
Or be Mandodari, the beautiful, pious, and righteous.
Ravana’s dutiful wife who couldn’t be his guiding
force,
Bibhishana’s compliant wife, the indomitable grace.
Be you, the elemental, candid, real woman who is my
ideal.
Don’t ever let another female foetus be the victim of
sadomasochism, unlike your fragile, fledgling Mom.
Be all that she could never be, be her role model.
I send you my prayers, the prayer before birth.
Moon, rain, oceans, and the blue firmament,
shining stars and a sun aglow are all that I have--
you must call them your own, my unborn daughter.
Forgive me my love, for you died with all the petals
falling from my autumny breast, the breast that you
never suckled;
you rain on my being and burn my heart, but calm my
soul
like simmering snow slowly concealed yetrevealed.
You will stay indomitable, taking new lives every
single day
in Mom’s prayers, poetry, social responsibilities,
ecofeminism,
messages, voices, layers of thoughts and action. My
girl,
I am what I decided to be after losing you, that’s the
euphemism.
I am not just a woman since that fateful night, but
entire
womankind.Now I am a woman of full circle, within me
there is the
power to create, nurture and transform. I rediscover
pieces of myself
through your unborn narrative, in the resonance in my quirky
confluence.
…………………………………………………………………………………
Biobrief: Prof.Nandini Sahu, Professor of
English, IGNOU, New Delhi, India, is an established Indian English
poet,creativewriter,theorist and folklorist. She is the author/editor of
thirteen books;has been widely published in India, U.S.A., U.K.,Africa and
Pakistan.Dr.Sahu is a double gold medalist in English literature,the award
winner of All India Poetry Contest and Shiksha
Rattan Purashkar. She is the Chief Editor and Founder Editor of two
bi-annual refereed journals, Interdisciplinary
Journal of Literature and Language(IJLL) and Panorama Literaria. Her areas of research interest cover New Literatures, Critical
Theory, Folklore and Culture Studies, Children’s Literature, American
Literature.
www.kavinandini.blogspot.in
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