STOP RAPING ME

 I feel raped each and everytime....
Stop it! before I loathe the touch of any of you
Even the ones that love and care
Because all I feel everytime, is hurt and despair and pain that is ever increasing

Hell, Don' t equate my honour to all else you can steal, beg and borrow
Because all else you can weigh
Don't try to test your manhood on me, I am not a guinea pig
Because I have spirit that will never restore

I may sell my body every day, You still have no right to rape me
I may strip myself in a crowd of hundreds, You still don't have the right to rape me.
I may be you bete noire, spit venom on you, You still have no right to rape me
You might claim to love me and I may be your bed-mate, You still have no right to rape me!

She lies there, defiled and beaten
And I see a mirror image of me
With every counting of her breath, I feel something dying in me
And yet I will live on, because I have a battle to fight and a revenge to take


 Rosemary Marandi



 

A Coffee Table Intellectual

I have been itching to write this for sometime now.  And no! The feminist in me is not ovulating. Its the realisation that has suddenly dawned on me that  we (women), almost all of us,  so desperately try to fit in, to be accepted and live happily ever after. And in the bargain, smile less.

More often than not, I have used sentences like, "May be a little adjustment, can give you a great ever after", "End of the day, you don't want to be alone",  or  "Dude, look what you are getting in return". And all of these not too long ago... A little long ago, sentences would be prouder, less compromising, questioning. And that little long ago was when nobody told me (or I myself did not think as much) that time was running out, I was fast reaching the Sun -- that sun looks like this '30'.

So, I beg, borrow, steal. Quite literally. I beg to be accepted, borrow ideas from K-Serials and steal someone else's philosophy of life. And all that is justified, cause I so much want to FIT IN. And good Indian girls should be able fit into size 8 (just used the numerical to denote perfection). Even though the whole nine yards bare it all.  Okay back to what I want to actually say, See I have actually forgotten my real voice!

Suddenly, I am afraid of  my past and want to justify it all or go mute about some part of it. Till yesterday, I wasn't even ashamed about the series of relationships I've had, have lived believing that all of them happened for good and have taught me something or the other. And believe me on this one -- many of my friends have felt the same at some point, given up on who they are to just FIT IN.

So, I have tried to analyse, have spoken to many of my age and those who have crossed the psychological mark and all of one thing to say -- Since, men and the society they so much control never change for us, we do it for them. It's time to settle down, they say. But settle down for what?  For a man, who has had a past, but cannot accept mine??? For a society that thinks a man will change for the better after a marriage, but a woman cant? For a partner, who is irked by the fact that you were not able to speak out about a part of your past from him, but would not apologize for spying through your mails when you so simply let him access it and to add to it interpret it without knowing anything? Or for a suitor, who earns in six digits, is an achiever, a self-made man but cannot handle my rise and suspects that I might have slept my way up?  Or a guy, who is too sweet to even stand by you because he does not want to someone else to be unhappy?

Was reading a friend's blog and just got stuck with a phrase I thought so wonderfully brought out why the perfect bliss is never achieved --  "To wait for that first copy from Hongkong' or that hundred per cent, original LV".
In this race of who is more successful, and whose life is more complete, a woman who delivers the baby first seems the winner. Nothing against my settled friends, because I am sure they have met their respective perfect man, but before turning 30, If I refuse to settle for rip-offs, would I be any less complete?  

Do I actually need to cry out all the time asking people to accept me the way I am? Cant I be a woman, who can be both -- a workaholic and someone who can take care of her kid's meals and of the health of the man she loves? Why Do I have to be questioned for pulling my puff just too perfectly, and be judged that I cannot give it up when required? Just because a man cannot hold his drinks after the sixth peg, does it necessarily mean, I am spilling it all over after my seventh? Why does my strength have to be compared with those of yours? 

If  I, as a woman, am functioned to take up less burden than a man, why can a man not help me share the burden since he is stronger. Why can a man not believe that I can actually make sacrifices, when required, and not command it?  

Okay, too many WHYs.... I have made my point, I guess.

Signing off

Rosemary  

Like always...


I will wait to meet you again, this time to consume                       
that burning sun which blazes your eyes
and that breath which smells of a pungent soul

We had found each other after the storm

And in the rains are souls mated
Rainwashed and touched by the very first rays of the morn
Into the day and into the eve you melted into me


We met and parted and met to part

and everytime the pain was mine
while your arrogance soared like an eagle
I like a swallow have waited to fly on



Again you will remember me, again you will smile
And I will again and again and again believe you would stay
And again you will promise and break it in your pride
And I will again drink it all and spill none

For to me you will always remain untouched, unheard of
A desire so strong that all fields it will surpass


-- Rosemary Marandi

There is no field beyond

It is here that I can love you with an aching heart

Reach out for you with bleeding palm

Walk to you even as I limp and pain

Touch your heart and hear it call out my name

It is here that my pride will melt in the warmth of your lips

You will touch and watch me wither and bloom again

You will hurt and I will gnash, and grumble and fall 

You will push me away and will still hold on  

At times I have wanted to choke myself with thoughts of you

To shout my lungs out and explain the miseries I have been through

And it is here, I've thought you would never understand

Yet, I will not let you go

There is no field beyond, If  here you have chosen to let my hand be

When my pleading you have chosen to let grovel in the dust

When my meaning is just another passerby

I have wanted to walk this path, and barefoot and you chose not to carry me.

--- ROSEMARY MARANDI

Of Boat rides and Kochuris

BANDEL

That river was most of the times about boat rides on Christmas afternoons, noisy from picnic enthusiasts playing loud music on the banks, and sometimes host to keen guests from abroad trying to find a difference between Thames and Hooghly. 


And sometimes about floating earthen lamps visible from that railway bridge. They were prayer lamps, I had heard. And i would make thousand wishes everytime that I saw them.


Wishes of a good marks in university exams, a good career, making it big in life, of finding and keeping love, of less pain and more money.


Every Bandelite, living away, at some point in life might have wished that river extended to where they stay. But realised that small sleepy town was just a Port.


Seven years, out of town and everytime I have gone back, I have found the town the same. Barring a few additions like a 'More' store, some fancy 'TMC-special' street lights near Imam Bara, and an extended railing (to prevent suicides) on Bandel Church Shrine. A few residential apartments coming up too. 


And yes, that phuchka wala near Bandel More and Khirod Kaku from Church grounds were not to be spotted this time around... The Sweet shop, near Church, where we used to get awesome Kochuri, that has closed down. Playgrounds are getting smaller and cyber cafes multiplying. Prem Nagar Math is now a bus terminal.


However, Halogen lights near Sign Board More, and all para entrances burn with the same intensity as it used to a decade back (you cant expect it to burn any dimmer, right?). Chawk Bajaar er chop er dokaan, still frying mangsher chop and chicken pokora in one-day old oil. Auxilium and Don Bosco continue to have bitter sweet fights and everlasting love stories. Boudi r dokaan (near DBB) still is the meeting point and her business thriving by the day.


Okay, if all that sound too critical. Pasher baarir kakima still has the time to sob at your deteriorating health and Nabarun Math  still hosts football matches. And a one-hour boat-ride can be bargained for Rs 150.    


I still love going back because.....

    
It is in Bandel that I can walk from home to school once more, cry at the chapel and pray hard at the Church shrine. There, hearing someone call out my daak naam, is not embarassing. Because phuchka kaku still customises phuchka for me with salad and achaar. Churmur is still home-delivery item and aloo kabli a feasty menu. May be because I have found the reason to go back. :)




Okay, now sentimentals aside... It is good get-away. One-hour train journey from Howrah station, or a two-hour drive, and you come to a place less noisy, more sleepy, three-four historic monuments, like Imam Bara,  Hanseshwari Mandir, and Bandel Church. A weekend is enough for visitors. For foreign and big-city returns, a week or fortnight of adda and lazing around. 


Okay ebaar baaje bokchhi. Enjoy Summers!!!


Signing off

 Rosemary