#writingsociety

[abhitidutta]

Feminine Hiss - tique

They say Beauty & Brain cannot co - exist in a woman,

I smirk at these words while reading Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique,

My heart is a pomegranate

I wear dangling chrysanthemum earrings

My tongue curls & turns the pages of private, mystical feminine psyche

Artemis, the Goddess of the wild animals, vegetation and childbirth comes to me in her chariot,

Eve cuts apples & shares with the serpent while Adam takes sermons to unlearn everything he was taught about masculine commands & sentimental cannibalism,

I unclench my jaw & take deep breaths,

Dipping my fingers in the water I collected from orange blossoms, I awaken & collect the murals of history that split a woman into two, only to burn them in the fleshy orange fire

[abhitidutta]

My eyebrows look like masculine hands grating coconuton a 7 am breakfast of piping hot, coriander smeared Poha

My lashes curl like hibiscus dipped in the Bay of Bengal

My nose is a landslide

separating the mother from the father,

the father from his self – admiration

My nostrils, they look like

the watery loathing for Plato’s view that says

Poets should be banished from an ideal state

& if you look up at my eyes

they are refugees without the green passports,

living with so much shame,

unable to share a saree, curd rice

this is why one refugee eye cannot look at the other

without noticing the reflection of

national flags on their pupils

dissolving into irony

My lips? If you bite them,

they’ll leave a grainy taste of the Chikoo fruit

My lips? If you kiss them,

they’ll caramelise your mouth with the mixed taste of Cashews & kishmish

People ask who do you write so much for, what surprises you?

I say ‘Me, I am my own Muse’

We use glass windows to either see the

people out of our house

or our own reflections on the window

Why is forgiveness not meant to forgive

but to move on?

& if my breasts go up & down

with breaths taken during

midnight trials at God's court of law

does that mean I feel too much?

A little too much?

A little too much?

- Abhiti / Chiti

[abhitidutta]

UnwrApril : a poem

April is the smoke from

a cup of brewing tea

dancing with the aroma of Poila Baisakh

April is for reading Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's Durgeshnandini,

reciting Nazrul’s Dhumketu,

April is eggplant marinated in mustard paste

April is when you run towards love, not away from it

April is a crush that comes without the warning of sweeping you off your feet but drops postcards and pressed daffodils at your doorstep

April is unlike September, because September is alta but April is hibiscus

April is spring at heart, yet autumn at mind,

April culminates into sweet nothings

April is crimson, like pomegranates, like the

Ever – forgiving ladybug

April is a child’s memory, abstract yet concrete

And obviously has its mother in it

April is the flashy imagination of an adult,

April is an urbanized Bengali, returning to his native suburb of Pailan but only in his mind, never in reality

- Abhiti / Chiti

[abhitidutta]

By the skin of my teeth : a poem

I wear my grandmother’s yellow Dhakai saree

like a child wears her mother tongue,

while my brother, angry about his new haircut,

throws tantrums,

like chairs thrown when the ‘man of the house’

is upset,

I forgive the men who

never made it official,

never said where I stand in their life,

never acknowledged me

before their friends,

My cat looks like ‘Forgiveness’ in all forms

& when a baby is born,

the mother keeps talking to him

regardless of whether he understands her language or not,

she will not care if he is crying or moving toy cars,

she will keep talking to him,

That’s what my mother did to my newborn brother

- Abhiti / Chiti

[abhitidutta]

Mr ‘FIX ME’

I know this man

Abuse is his mother tongue

He lives in Lansdowne street, Calcutta,

is selectively dyslexic

so never expect him to read words like

‘Feminism’, ‘Equal rights’

He says he has read the Gita, Quran, Bible, everything,

In evenings, he degrades his emotionally intelligent wife,

at nights he tries to make love to her, she withdraws,

Next morning, he says she’s the kind of woman every man wants in his wife,

I know this man,

Abuse is his mother tongue

- Abhiti/ Chiti

[abhitidutta]

I don't like how people say there are better things to do at this age than to find love. I suppose the one speaking this way is also looking for love,but hates to acknowledge they need a partner, they need reassurance, they need love.

People dislike showing what they need but take pride in asserting what they want. It's tragic how even the need of such a beautiful feeling to be reciprocated is a shameful thing to say, to acknowledge.

- Abhiti/ Chiti

[abhitidutta]

March is jojoba butter on a brown naked neck. March is when you are in love, partially, even if not wholly. March is when you crochet. March is the girl in spring frocks plucking pink flowers from tall, patriarchal trees. March is when you don't think twice before speaking, but March is forgiving and lets you be.

- Abhiti / Chiti

[onlinetyping]

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