#behindthenetra

[sinkdancing]

Fingertips

I'm squeezing the tips of my fingertips just to confirm that this is real.

And before I tip into an abyss of loving you and we shake on a deal.

Before we get down to business,

I just want to confirm that I'm not alone in this.

I'm terrified because this is too good to lose. Too good to be true?

It's just that this is first time I haven't been comforted by someone's abuse. 

Can I bottle this up and put it up on a shelf where no one else can reach it.

Because this kind of love, no one can teach it.

I know this journey isn't going to be simple perfection.

But I just need to know you and I are going in the same direction. 

I need to know you're going to take the wheel when I'm losing control.

I just need to know we have the same fire to alight to the same goal.

Are we going to be equals, a team in this relationship?

And not an ancient settlement based on some kind of ownership.

I know I'm not easy, I'm sure you could find a girl that would be no trouble.

But I hope you know that I have the kind of love that could make mountains from rubble.

And I'd climb to its peak if that's where you need me.

I'd do it a thousand times over if that what it need be. 

Even if my feet were to bleed I'd continue to climb. 

I'd do everything for you if you were mine.

I'd read your every emotion as if it were headlines.

And just so you know, we'll be playing Street Fighter way past bedtime.

I wasn't the princess in a tower to be saved, waiting for you to arrive. 

I was more of the fire breathing dragon, burning the so called 'Prince Charmings' alive. 

You made me so uncomfortable because I wasn't used to what you were giving me. 

Made my voice feel valid and never dismissing me.

Even if I pushed you away you gave me patience like nobody else.

Because you knew I had to build my power all by myself. 

I used my ribs as cages around my heart so I could protect it.

I built walls so high but you never wrecked it.

You simply made a door and stepped right in.

Which has left me in awe every night ever since. 

You came out of nowhere and knocked me to the ground

And now it stings like paper cuts on my heart when you aren't around. 

I didn't know you could stop my anxiety attacks with a kiss. 

I didn't know you noticed when I fiddled with my hands and wrists. 

So now I thank your family for raising a man I didn't think could exist. 

But now I want to wake up knotted up in your morning warmth.

I want to see the sunrise behind you so that when you wake you are blinded by its reflection in my eyes.

I never want to go to bed angry, lets always communicate and compromise.

I want to wrap myself in your arms like a cocoon till we burst like the butterflies in my stomach every time you tell me that I'm powerful. 

I know I'm a handful.

But I promise I will keep your hands full of all the hopes and dreams that we can achieve.

You give me almost every reason possible to believe,

That my flaws and scars hidden under what I wear for the world do not make me weak. 

I might not always going to be that brave woman that you first saw on that November stage. 

I'll always be powerful, but I cry a lot, I'm needy, I'm vulnerable and sometimes have some mad crazy bitch rage.

And you know I don't need roses.

I just want the thorns hidden in your deepest darkest depth to dig into me so I can really feel you.

I want the good, the bad and the ugly. I want the real you. 

I want to travel through your thoughts like the lands you've traveled to.

I want us to challenge each other's minds, teach things we never knew. 

I don't need you to say those three words to prove it.

I just need you to just do it.

People say it all the time, so easily spoken and so easily heard

But I need your actions to speak louder than words

And hopefully right now you can see in my eyes

What I sometimes find so hard to verbalise

Because those brown eyes have got me hypnotised, maybe we should give it a try?

I think I want to fall in love.

I think I want to fall in love.

Because right now

I'm squeezing the tips of my fingertips just to confirm that this is real.

And before I tip into an abyss of loving you and we shake on a deal.

Before we get down to business,

I just want to confirm that I'm not alone in this.

@behindthenetra Jaspreet Kaur

[behindthenetra]

Hey soulbirds! Check out my radio interview on @bbcasiannetwork with @dippsbhamrah, reciting my new poem 'Baaz' http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03qmvtt

[behindthenetra]

My grandfather migrated to the UK in the late 50s after a long and difficult journey. Once he reached London he then had to endure a number of different racial, emotional and financial hardships. But he was able to build a foundation for my family that we will be forever grateful for. I travelled to all the homes that my granddad lived in, leading me all over East London, including Aldgate, Greenwich and even the old site of the Ford Motor Co. plant in Dagenham.

This one is for you Babaji, for being Ajit Singh - from Sanskrit अ (a) "not" and जित (jita) "conquered".

I see the veins on your hands

come closer to the surface.

I’m nervous.

I sit by you.

Imagining the untold stories

that flow within them.

 I watch you inhale

and exhale the taste of survival.

A strength built since arrival.

Tattoo’d into your lungs.

A lost linger of exile living at the constant rate of breath.

 A village boy

with ambition in his eyes.

Afraid.

But you tried.

Rolling into a rat race

Not knowing a word of their speech.

Determined not to lose the language of your ancestors,

Or forget the prayers that you preached.

 I think about the drops of

non stop rain and storms

that must have weathered you.

We never knew.

The way their words would attempt to rub the colour off of you.

 Eventually you learnt a second tongue.

But your heartbreak remained unsung until your family could be with you.

Yet still afraid and

so young.

It took many years till your rewards could be sewn.

Days and nights

in factories

with destinations unknown.

 Eventually you became hyphenated:

British-Indian.

But in no way has that divided

the essence of your roots

Or

Separated you from the hard work, blood, sweat and tears

and territorial disputes.

You conquered a land that conquered your bloodline.

It’s a thin line

Between giving up, going back and the finish line.

 You set the foundations to

our existence.

You passed that power to my parents

and encouraged their

self-subsistence.

Continuing to give your name justice.

 You now sit by your radio

Dhaari long and white

And defined by every strand.

Your skin still rich with the colour of your home land.

I smell tea and biscuits.

Reading the news; today’s paper in hand.

But your stories remain untold

Because they will

never understand.

 Twitter/Instagram @behindthenetra

www.behindthenetra.com

[behindthenetra]

I was fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to speak at Oxford University this weekend. I was able to share a number of my poems as well as sharing my own poetic journey. Through performing these particular poems I was also able to speak about my thoughts on issues ranging from domestic violence and mental health to partition and immigration.

[behindthenetra]

'Cultural Appropriation is the adoption of elements of one culture by members of a different cultural group, especially if the adoption is of an oppressed people's cultural elements by members of the dominant culture.'

Brown women wore shisheh in their clothes since the 17th century. Now they’re worn more beautifully as if they weren’t meant for me.

I see them on runways, weaved into their embroidery, so cheaply. When for centuries their reflections were enough for a man to fall in love so deeply.

Because, brown women have been wearing naths since the 16th century. Now they’re worn more beautifully as if they weren’t meant for me.

I remember one time I wore a bindi to school. I thought it was pretty, they called me a fool. They said go back to your country, with your stinking clothes. And now I see them in almost every music video.

So I say hey what now makes it so cool?

Because, brown women have been wearing payals since the first century. Now they’re worn more beautifully as if they weren’t meant for me.

Their chimes alone acted as inspiration for poetry. You should read the Cilappatikaram. Maybe?

Maybe not.

Maybe I'm wrong to assume that the same mouths that made the word immigrant so dirty - are the same mouths dying for a curry on a Friday night - or a chai tea latte?

Because, brown women wore mendhi vale hath since the Vedic century. Now they’re worn more beautifully as if they weren’t meant for me.

Patterns on my palms that could put petals to shame. Their stains were enough for lions to lose their tame.

Their curves and lines considered hypnotic. Now I bet your henna tattoos make you feel so damn hipster, so damn exotic.

I'm not saying that our lives shouldn't be shared and symbiotic. I'm just saying we shouldn't have been degraded in the process.

Whilst they mocked our linguistics, the artistic or the symbolic, we were crying to be cut loose from the shackles of colonialism.

Oh, the irony of Indian women scraping their heavenly dark skin with beauty creams to make themselves lighter, whilst they fake up their tans, we cry to be whiter.

My thick hair was decided for me before I was even in the womb. Let me assure you that my brown skin isn't some kind of costume.

We have tried our best to adopt a cultural milieu. Mould ourselves in the surrounding environment like glue, but who are we trying to fool?

We just make ourselves look more out of place, like trapped animals in a zoo. But assimilation is a complete separate issue, I'll leave that to Fanon to discuss.

Because we shouldn't have to blend.

For once can we not pretend?

That my beautiful culture is not a trend that will pass on like bell bottom jeans and feathered hair, this is my beauty.

I'm happy to share.

But not at the cost of belittlement. And not in combination with a comment on my mothers accent.

I’m not saying you cant wear and do such things but please acknowledge the years of discrimination those things would bring.

We have been too busy living in the dust of an empire that burnt our worth, that we refuse to grow from the ashes.

But I'm no longer ashamed, I will wear my kajal along my long lashes and wear our seeds with pride so we can flourish.

So sure, wrap yourself up in a sari, whilst we unravel ourselves from our self hatred and low self esteem.

Unweave the oppression, and we'll let go of the victimhood stitched in the seams.

Jaspreet Kaur

[behindthenetra]

47

Let's talk about that year. That year that led our soil to be rich with tears. And as it appears, the judgment has been made. They've paid the price for their faith. Musulman there, Hindu-stan here and Sikhs, well, they can go anywhere? Forget your forefathers son, what defines them means nothing now. What is done is done. You can watch the setting of the sun from your side, behind your line. Put down your shotgun, leave it there with your zameen.

What do you mean fourteen? Fourteen million. Fourteen million uprooted from their homes. Uprooted like roots of a tree, ripped out of the soil that they belong to. And it won't be long before they make weak out of the strong. Remove them. Displaced. Son, let go from that embrace. That's not our home anymore. You can watch the kites soar from the your side, behind your line. We couldn't even fight a war, we didn't even have a chance for our lions to roar because they were all so sure that independence is here. That's not independence my dear, that's just a remembrance that the colonialists ruled us and always will. Like a pill, drugging us with opium until we are too blind to see our worth. And here we are crying for a rebirth, a change. Well isn't that strange? This was meant for our own good. Convincing us that this is what we want… We used to love our Muslim - Hindu - Sikh neighbour, treated them like our sister and brother. But now they're our enemy, they’re the Other.

A corpse filled train? Now tell me, how will I explain that the dead were refrained from being cremated? How will I get it in their brains that their remains, the skin and their manes won't mix with the rain and fall into the rivers of my Panjab.

Five rivers.

Yet three are exclusively there, two are here. Tell me how is that fair? Whilst you sit there at the border every day at sunset and you cheer. Two parts of the land stretch out their thirsty hands, and whilst for some their patriotism expands, others are desperately trying to let go of their homelands.

Border border, bringing some world order? Losing more than three quarters, burn down those borders. This wasn't migration. This was mass movement. This wasn't an improvement. Listen closely my dear, give me your ear. The blood is still spilling in the soil of Kashmir. Awake from this life of so called freedom and independence or continue to sleep into a nightmare. Because we have been living a lie since that very year.

47.

Jaspreet Kaur

[jasleen-k]

FALL IN LOVE WITH A LION

“I dream of his free-flowing beard,

His magnificent mane, curled and twisted along his beautiful strong jaw.

I want his heavy hands, his paws, to bare weight on mine.

I’ll admire each strand of his hair as it slips down his fierce back when he removes his crown.

KING of the jungle.

I want the sound of his thick steel kara clinging to make my hair rise.

His simran beads on his left hand to jingle.

I want him to twist his mucha when he thinks.

I don’t want him speak, I want him to roar. Spilling REVOLUTIONS from his word.

A growl from his throat that sends THUNDERS through my chest.

I want to be taken into his pride. I will be his family.

We shall run wild and free in the savanna. Hunt for our dreams together. We shall change the world.

I will accept his weaknesses, his war wounds, his scars, I will help make him stronger.

I will see his soft SOUL hidden under that velvet skin.

Whenever he feels caged,

I’ll free him.

Whenever he feels raged,

I’ll tame him.

In Sanskrit he will be my Simha.

For our cubs he’d be their Simba.

Do not doubt me, do not have me mistaken.

I shall not be his lamb.

I will be his SHERNI. His resident Queen.

My Lion. My Sher. My Singh.

Why would you doubt yourself when you have STRENGTH and power written in your name?

Why would you not find yourself beautiful? Breath taking.

So I wonder… Why would a Sherni want to be with a lamb when she should find her equal..

She could fall in love with a Lion.” Jaspreet Kaur, Behind the Netra 

[behindthenetra]

I was fortunate enough to be asked to speak on Sikh Channel the other week. I discussed some interesting topics on gender in the Indian community, as well as reciting my poem ‘Red Books.’