For Indian women who live an occupied life under marriages of honour.<\/i><\/p>\n
a few years ago
\nMa looked after a mango plant
\ngrowing tall beside sacred basil,
\nwhen it flourishes she said
\ngrey fence walls and the house
\nwashed in last September rain
\nbathed in dust again
\nwouldn’t look too ugly,
\nwide trunks will climb above roof
\nbig green leaves and deep yellow fruits would hang,
\nneighbour’s children will climb and giggle.<\/p>\n
front yard will smell wood and stems
\ngive cold air in endless summer months.<\/p>\n
lost in contemplation
\nMeera stands against granite kitchen shelf,
\none year in new family
\nnew mother new father
\na husband and brother,
\nmonth after month
\ncheques stuff their joyful plates,
\nlike mango tree’s promise.<\/p>\n
she sips cardamom tea
\nas they drink theirs on sofa and chat,
\nthere’s enough gold\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 loans now easy to pay
\nkitchen towel hangs wet on tap
\nit will dry
\nher damp suit in humid kitchen
\nperhaps some day\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 would dry.<\/p>\n
she has grown wiser and respectful,
\nmarried to more things than Ma
\nto her job and its money
\nprinted Gandhi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 remains powerful like alive
\nhelps prisoners\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 go out and work
\neat and see friends
\nwhile they enjoy pressing
\nslavery buttons at home.<\/p>\n
House arrest\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 it all has changed.
\n_______________________<\/p>\n
Sumeet Grover:<\/em> For Indian women who live an occupied life under marriages of honour.<\/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-34225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-format"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34225","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=34225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\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":"