I can tell that
my father is not a feminist
in the way, he calls
me and my sister
his rose and his dahlia.
He has been watering flowers,
and not raising daughters.
⠀
I can tell that
my father is not a feminist
in the way, he walks beside me
and in the way, he tells me
how to walk beside him.
delicately, softly, gracefully
floating in the air like
a fairy.
⠀
I can tell that
my father is not a feminist
in the way, he asks me to speak up
when he talks over me.
⠀
My father has educated us
in science, in literature, in art
but he cannot teach us what
he does not understand himself.
⠀
My father tells me
to go conquer the cosmos,
to unfurl my wings and soar into the sky
but to come back home
before nine.
⠀
My father loves us
but fears for us more.
⠀
I can tell that
my father is not a feminist
when he says that
women have to hustle
harder, longer
because we are built slower.
⠀
He says the issue
lies in the fact that
women are not men.
⠀
He says it isn’t our fault
it’s our chromosomes
how our genes are coded
we are moulded to be smaller,
weaker, with rounder shoulders
that cannot bear the weight
of this cruel unfair world.
⠀
We have to wear armour
and be on guard with spears–
this is a battlefield, darling
if you are too fragile to be the offence
at least be on your defence.
Why do I have to wage a war
to lay claim over my own womb?⠀
I can tell that
my father is not a feminist
in the way, he doesn’t want to
change the world for us
but wants us to change
for the world.
⠀
My father is a good son
a good husband
a good father
but above all, he is a good man.
My father is a man
a man
aman
amen a man
amen amen amen.
So when my father told me
that he would finance my
higher education once
I get married to a suitable man
⠀
I agreed to marry
as long as I could wear
a plain white sari
on the wedding day–
it would be as though
I’d be attending a funeral
My funeral.
Anushka is a dental student who lives in a constant state of a writer’s block but manages to brew a poem or two in the desperate hope that someone, somewhere will read and relate.
Featured image credit: Martina Bulková/Pixabay