An intense and powerful poem, by Dr. Roopali, about Bittoo’s battered mother and women wronged down the ages. An exclusive for Different Truths.
How to teach that frightened boy Bittoo with a runny nose his shorts torn, his belly hungry watching his battered mother inside a dark damp tarpaulin-wrapped existence kicked in her pregnant swell, her hair pulled, her head crushed against the brick wall her screams of anguished pain and at night in the dark again the violent grunts and the heavy hurried breathing? “We mothers must teach our boys to value women.” The Ladies Club Secretary was on Zoom. Bholu, Babli, Sonu, Goldy and Bunty growing up in slums and shanty towns like wriggly worms in cow dung staring at the carefree neighbourhood college pizza burger-eating crowd. The line of cars outside and the nubile giggling girls. The tight jeans, and the tee-shirt stretched across swelling breasts those unattainable luxuries. Simmering anger the brutal existence the unlettered mind and the angry voices of men at night under the tarpaulin covered brick hutments. At night those recurring wet dreams. A widow full of forbidden desire the disguised female demon her face must be defaced. The unachievable demure wife abducted, incarcerated her defiance and her lurking lust for the golden deer her chastity must be tested only through fire and that bedmate to five husbands a whore dragged by her hair and disrobed a mere pawn in a game of dice and those luscious poison smeared pleasure globes suckled chewed and bitten off by the pranking dark philanderer the disrober of bathing women The wise charioteer. and now at night the shrieks of women the pleading the whimpering the moans and then the silence. Bittoo and his mother sometimes went to the Shiva temple where she jostled other women to lovingly pour milk and flowers on the dark erect stone phallus. Her God. His God. Bittoo is learning fast You see, Bittoo doesn’t go to school. His mother’s saree smells of semen and stale food from Lalaji’s kitchen.
Visuals by Different Truths
Dr. Roopali Sircar Gaur is a poet, travel writer, and social justice activist. A former professor of English Literature at Delhi University, and a creative writing professor at IGNOU, she is a widely published academic and creative writer. Her book Twice Colonised: Women in African Literature, is a seminal text on women’s socio-political empowerment. In 2020-21, she co-edited two poetry anthologies – In All the Spaces: Diverse Voices in Global Women’s Poetry, and Earth Fire Water Wind.
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Beautiful penned
Well written
A powerful poem!
So poignant!