Marred Muliebrity

By Aryaa Anand

The wedding attire wraps me in its folds and hangs down the feeble table,

I lay on the shaking four legged berth to death;

soon realisation dawns on me,

I find myself in the midst of a crowd of women-

my mother, her mother, my mother-in-law, her mother-in-law,

my sister-in-law, her mother-in-law, my sister and her mother-in-law;

a whole lot of unidentifiable women stand there in sheer silence.

An aged experienced 'reverend' woman,

playing with a rusted black blade comes close,

closer and even closer. Pulling me closer;

she lifts my dress and reaches my underpants

to get hold of the scarred stitched skin to cut it open.

And slash slash slash- the blade runs over me,

the folds of my skin dangle down;

drop drop drop- the blood gushes over to fall down on the dusty floor.

The dust settles there-

marking that I passed the test of proving my chastity.

The women surround me and pat me on the back

and dance to some happy tunes.

While I hear the music playing, I'm suddenly pushed back into time.

The thoughts of 'that night' deafen me-

I can now see a seven year old chubby girl laying on a table,

with women hooting and cheering, for, soon the core of the girl will be slit

right from the middle, to make her 'pure, clean and marriageable'.

The main woman arrives,

grabs the girl by her legs,

pinches the spot between her fingers;

and cut cut cut- she slashes the part in a jiffy of time.

She snatches her womanhood;

she snatches her gem that'd have given her all the joys of being a woman;

she snatches her femininity!

Why? You ask why!!!

Of course to make her a greater pleasure for her future husband,

to abstain her from living the life she wants,

to cease her from being a true woman,

to make her eligible for a 'perfect groom'.

While she cries horrendously in agony

the crowd rejoices with chatter.

Finally,

they stitch the wound and

end her freedom,

to let her be a slave to those

hollow traditions and weak cultures.

…

I'm brought back to the present with drums reverberating in my ears.

When I soon conceive that it's my nuptial night,

I slip back into thoughts again

for, I discover that when I conceive my husband's heir

I will be cut again.

To let the world see the child's face

and will be stitched back yet again.

To cut those wings,

that'd have let me fly into the world of womanhood,

where I were myself, in true essence a female.

I wasn't altered at the hands of the society

and I was the actual creation of the Almighty!

By Aryaa Anand