Dear Future Husband
If I deny changing my last name after marriage?
What is the game about changing it and making it same
when our heartbeat has a common name.
It already makes us one
doesn't it?
Will your eyes look at me the same way you used to
If I deny bowing on your feet
on the day of marriage when the priest says so
or after marriage?
Or will you say No,
She doesn’t need to
And take a stand for me?
Husband is god they say
but will you add that my wife needs to be treated as goddess too?
because she is my "Ardhangini"
the other half that completes me.
or will you also weigh the respect I have for you on the one
and bowing you on the other
and take it as a disrespect to your manhood
as this society does?
The respect should come by heart,
The mutual one,
Not by bowing on the feet
Isn’t it?
Will you be ashamed to help me in the kitchen,
or cook for me
when I come home from work
drained and exhausted at times
or will you wait for me
to cook for you and the whole family
no matter how hungry you are
just because they say
A kitchen is women's business
not Men’s.
will you also lie in that category?
This society,
the people in it,
wants women to sacrifice everything,
leave everything,
her home,
her last name,
her identity
to the point, she no longer remembers who she is,
expected to get dissolved in the tears she sheds
when she leaves her house,
when her parents bid her goodbye
saying now you belong to someone else.
like a property
that has been handed over from one to another.
legally, signed in the marriage certificate.
Why does it have to be this way?
Can’t you see
she has her own identity?
why is she always someone's daughter,
someone's wife,
someone's mother,
why isn't she only she? Her. Herself.
She is told from the childhood,
that this is not her home,
that she is a keepsake of someone else
a possession that has to be given away
a memento that reminds them of someone else.
that is kept in the home to get polished
and learn skills she will need
how to cook
how to wash clothes
how to make the roti round,
how to keep working 24/7 like a machine,
no matter how educated and rich she is,
no matter how good marks she get
her results that say distinction means nothing,
she needs to be a distinction holder in the kitchen
her roti needs to be a circle shape
her body needs to be in a right shape,
the shape that society decides,
her steps has a bar as her age does,
to get married,
or who will marry her?
she will die alone.
Does this society matter more than she does?
why can't she be just she?
and retain her identity
why can't the husband come to live in wife's home,
the home of her parents,
without shame,
maybe it hurts the norms of this patriarchal society
as it is against it,
it is tradition to leave home for women
and shame for a man to leave his, right?
Who shames? This society that shouldn’t matter?
Ranting about this society
and its so called norms,
I’m tired of it
and I should care no more,
because it doesn’t matter,
because it shouldn’t matter,
because it is not worth my time,
and because a life of women matters.
It is not society, who is going to live my life,
It’s me,
It’s not society I have to live with,
It’s you
So, tell me what's in your head,
tell you what do you expect?
will you stand with the society
in the war to give me an identity crisis
labeling me as a feminist,
saying stop bullshitting woman,
you are crazy,
or with me?
Saying you'll stand beside me,
with me,
with me,
No matter who says what,
because it is this that matters now,
it's you that matters to me,
it’s us that matters me,
not the society.
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