{"id":20549,"date":"2012-07-30T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=20549"},"modified":"2012-07-28T22:23:23","modified_gmt":"2012-07-28T21:23:23","slug":"woman-with-no-gold","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/07\/woman-with-no-gold\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman with No Gold"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the Poverty-Stricken Women in India Who Work as Domestic Maids<\/em><\/p>\n

Another summer afternoon
\nunder furnace sky
\nroads, mud, golden grass, dead air
\ndull in pinching heat that pierces skin,
\nsaps water and more,
\nnature’s laws of balance
\nmost get by, sitting on cold marble floors,
\nair conditioned living rooms
\nalthough for her yet another afternoon.<\/p>\n

she walks out of a house, tall black gates
\nher dark skin covering bones, veins ornaments, keenly seeks
\nfurnace yellow’s unconditional love
\nlong day, second round, fourth house
\ndishes were clean and floors mopped
\nletting them walk bare foot,
\ncook food for clean dinner plates.<\/p>\n

she is woman with destiny, inhabitant of asbestos
\nand steel structures where children run on streets,
\ncars scooters bicycles are skyscraper dreams.
\nA maid, veins etched under skin testify her fate,
\nas do her ‘small breasts’ as group of boys whisper each other under Neem,
\nkeenly experimenting their growing instincts.<\/p>\n

she walks back home
\nin hundred-rupee pink suit orange scarf
\nbought from Friday bazaar, roadside sellers away from malls
\nfantasy for her, filth for others;
\nmeets friends on broken pavement, gossips and giggles,
\ndestiny for a moment disappears.<\/p>\n

perhaps there is no such thing as destiny for her
\nshe is free to laugh to meet to share to speak
\nunlike women she works for;
\nwomen with gold bangles and inherited necklaces
\nlocked in generations of promise of family pride and dignity
\nhouse arrested by honour.
\n________________________<\/p>\n

Sumeet Grover:<\/em>
\n– Member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment<\/a> and of the TRANSCEND Art & Peace Network<\/a><\/em>
\n– Coordinator of Global Poetry<\/a><\/em>
\n– A software engineer originally from India, based in the UK.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the Poverty-Stricken Women in India Who Work as Domestic Maids<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}