Hello Patriarchy, Are You Listening?

When women finally rise and speak up for their rights, nothing will be able to stop them. Hum dekhenge. We shall see.

We will come,
From Kashmir, from Kanyakumari,
With our dupattas,
Our hijabs,
Our skirts,
Our shorts,
Our bindis.
And our daughters.
We will come with our straight spines which Patriarchy could not break even after a thousand whips.

When you come with your batons and guns,
Just before you kill us,
We will write poetry of defiance and resistance,
On our skin.
On our bones.
In between our tongues.

You will teach them obedience,
They will scream back resistance.

On a dark alley, a little girl will quip, “Inquilab Zindabad.”
And a thousand others will march, like light.
Speaking truth to power.

When you again bring the guns to us,
We will wake up our dead daughters,
Whom you never let be born.
Women don’t forget two things,
When their rights are taken away,
And when their children are killed.

Every woman has a parallel world,
A world, where their rights are enjoyed
Where their daughters blossom,
Their birthdays celebrated and names remembered.

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This time when you come to ravage us,
We will raise the dead daughters, the mothers, the grandmothers.
And the first mother, whom you deny,
Yet whose blood you still carry.
Remember when Invisibles march, empires fall, crowns tumble.
From a corner, a woman called “Iqbal Bano” in a black Saree will croon,
“Hum Dekhenge.”

That day will mark the beginning of your fall.
The daughters are already marching with poetry and resistance in their skin.
Looking straight into your eyes,
Calling for your fall.

You still want to blame, the skirts and the shorts and the upbringing and the values
Look outside your window,
Women are marching,
Marking a new dawn.

Hello, Patriarchy, Are you listening?

“Hum Dekhenge: We will see.
The first paragraph is inspired by Nabiya Khan’s poem, “Aayega Inquilab.”

Image source: a still from the film Thappad

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