Your work as beautiful as you

People said give up, let it go,

You are alone, you have a handicap,

You will never survive,

You survived

And you worked

Your work as beautiful as you

You were beautiful when you swept and you cleaned before we got up

You were beautiful with sweat dripping from your forehead

And light beaming through your eyes

You were beautiful when you hugged us and showed us the clean room

You were beautiful when you held the door to steady yourself

And when you kept on picking up the falling broom

You were beautiful sans any jewelry

You were pretty and bright,

Even when the lender didn’t show any chivalry

Beaming from ear to ear

when you sold your last piece

You had twinkling eyes, and no trace of fear

When you stitched our dresses from your wedding gifts

Each stitch each cut taking hours and hours

You were beautiful with those intense eyes running on the seam

Making sure everything is as pretty as a dream

Walking down miles to save every rupee

Crying with our cries and pleading with our plea

Standing up for us against the whole world

Standing up for yourself against the herd

No crutches for your handicap

No excuses for anything bad

You were beautiful when you presented to the world

Your brave face,

Your firm stature

You were beautiful when you presented to us,

The bright future

As big as our dreams

As vivid as rainbow

As possible as tomorrow

You were beautiful when you looked in the mirror and smiled

You were beautiful when people taunted at your handicap and you were still kind

You were beautiful when you picked me up with one hand and hugged me tight

You were beautiful when you walked with a limp and never looked down and sighed

You are beautiful today for not wanting to mend and slow down

You are beautiful, as beautiful as my each trophy, each medal and each crown

You are beautiful because you made me believe in beauty of life

You knew when to let go and let us rise

You knew when to not follow and let us fly

We moved on and

May be the work you loved was over

May be it was time for you to slow down and not be a soldier

You are beautiful because you decided to start over

You decided to not stop,

You decided to contribute,

You decided to continue,

In your own special way

You are beautiful because you are still working

In your own special ways

Working for others, working through nights

Working through days

Working for those who need you

Carrying the red, pink and blue

Living their nightmares and sharing their hues

You are as beautiful as your work

Your work as beautiful as you

Dedicated to my mother, a special god’s messenger who survived and overcame her physical handicaps. And she literally brought us up single handily and is spreading her love to those in need even today.

“Life is as beautiful  and as handicapped as your thoughts”

This post is part of 'As Beautiful As Your Work' Contest sponsored byMia by Tanishq hosted by Women's Web.

Rain Tan Renga

passing under the leafy willows

of a street of temples

                                      an evening of rain                               (Shirao)

sound of Priests singing to God

                     blends with the hush of raindrops        (Juztamom)

The first haiku is written by Shirao (1735-1792); followed by the second stanza written by me.

Written for Carpe Diem Tan Renga # 10.  

Image credit here

Freedom

out of four walls

first step of freedom

long overdue

Written for Haiku Heights #270 Late

Image credit here

What does gender has to do with it?

Everywhere we go we are judged on various things, examples can be a stranger on the road judging us on our clothes, shopkeeper judging us on our wallet, neighbours judging us on our TV brand and model, neighbourhood aunty judging you on the hours you reach home etc etc but the most common and most rampant thing I have been judged on is my gender.

Growing up in a middleclass house in a small town, surrounded by various aunties and uncles, me and my sister were used to of being judged on our skirt lengths, our lone travel in the city, our night outings (beyond 7pm is night there) etc. But as soon as we would reach home we knew the gender was left outside our door. There was no room for gender in our house. Three of us had equal right, equal privileges and were entitled to equal spanking.

We were told again and again that we are what we are, as good as our abilities, as big as our dreams.

We were not girl or boy, we were students, children, friends and above all we were human.

As we stepped out of childhood and started taking little steps in the world on our own, we saw the gender becoming bigger and bigger around us. Girls were barred from doing many things. Things as simple as you can’t stand at the corner of the neighbourhood lane if you are a girl and god forbid if you do insist on doing it either you would be subjected to inane comments or whistles by boys or taunts by some aunty about being a shameless girl.

But we always thought we will soon grow out of it, grow out of the city, out of the people. We always thought what our mother said was right...some day when we will have an opportunity we will prove our mantle and we will be as good as our ability.

Soon very soon I stepped out alone in the world and took it with aplomb. I was successful beyond my dreams also and I had forgotten about my gender or rather I never thought my gender would have to do anything with my career but I was wrong.

Here comes the gender again!!

I was taunted again that I was successful because of my gender not because of my hard work or abilities.

I tried to forgive and forget the first instance but it kept happening again and again. It started reaching me, hurting me and hence I decided to tone down my gender. How did I do that?

I started dressing more neutrally, off went my pretty dresses, awesome fit shirts, my shoe collection etc. This went on for quite sometime and I thought this ought to shut up people because I don’t even look pretty but again I was wrong. It continued!

It is still continuing.....I am not working in an organisation now. I am not a part of any company. I am sitting in my ugly pajamas at my ugly table and writing but still I am being judged for my gender.

For some reason I thought this world would be different. Writers would be different, they would be more evolved. Anyways pen doesn’t have a gender or so I thought.

No here also gender is there. It is as prevalent as any other place on earth and it did get to me again. But I am glad I soon realised that if I would let this affect me now, I am not being as good as my ability, I am being as good as their judgement.

So here I am announcing....

"I am an attractive woman, a yum mum and a blogger. None of these are correlated and I will not apologise for any of it.

You can attribute your failure to your gender but I will not attribute my success to my gender. Rather every step I take here is a tribute to womanhood and every woman I know.

Early morning

early morning

fresh as a daisy

my love for you

my love for you

like a sun rise

swollen with pride

swollen with pride

Heart sings

every morning with you

Written for Carpe Diem #271 Morning celebration