Your Sunflower

I won't be the rose,

Whom you'll pick for it's beauty,

Or for it's heady fragrance -

And discard when the petals will get dried.

Rather, I'll be your sunflower,

Obsessively dependent on the sunshine,

Blooming only at the gentle touch

Of the first rays of the sun.

Now that the monsoon has arrived in the city

With rain-clouds hovering,

Impeding the incoming rays of sun,

Your sunflower's existence is at stake.

Gasping for it's breath,

It is yearning desperately for a sliver of sunshine

To sneak through the thick clouds,

And kiss the tender petals of the sunflower.

But the persistent rains refuse to go,

Making this monsoon season longer than usual.

© 2018. Swagata Tarafdar. All rights reserved.

What's in a Surname?

Amidst the incomprehensible chant of the priest in Sankskrit and flashes of the cameras, he put sindoor in the parting of my hair, while my nanad (sister-in-law, or my husband's sister) covered my head with a red tant saree, known as lajjavastra in marriage parlance. The cameraman asked me to sport a smile- the coy smile that a newly wed bride was expected to sport. The smoke from the sacred fire was stinging my eyes and I ended up with rubbing my eyes, smudging the carefully applied kajal by the make-up woman earlier that evening, as I tried lamely to smile looking at the camera. Looking back to that fateful day after a couple of years since my divorce, I think that was a decisive moment - the moment of my transition from being Miss Tarafdar to being Mrs. Das. Now that I am no longer married and no longer part of the Das family (which I have grown to despise since my marriage), I often wonder how easily women are expected to blend in with their matrimonial family, how they are expected to leave behind their maiden surname effortlessly while they take in a new identity - the identity of being someone's wife, the identity of being the proud Mrs. X, Mrs. Y or Mrs. Z. Marriage for a woman entails a vast change in her life - from change in the place of residence to change in the family members to change in surname, while for a man it means simply a change in his relationship status.

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This post titled "Why Won't You Change Your Surname? Even Priyanka Gandhi Changed It To Vadra!" has been published on Women's Web as a Featured Post. Featured Posts are a careful selection of highly relevant and interesting posts picked up by the editors of Women's Web each day. To read the full story, Click here.

A Mediocre Dream

 

"Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them."

-----Joseph Heller

Blue curtains

Lie crumpled on the floor,

Like the remains of a dream.

They are not needed any more

To adorn the windows,

To prevent the glaring sunlight

From entering the bedroom.

They are not needed any more,

For nobody inhabits the house any more.

The balcony lie empty,

Untidy,

For nobody cared to clean it.

Once someone wanted to

Deck it with potted plants.

Windows with blue curtains,

Balcony with potted plants,

Modular kitchen,

Branded water-purifiers -

All the ingredients of a mediocre dream

Breath their last,

For nobody cares for that dream now.

Mediocre dreams are like plants,

Needing someone to water them,

To care for them.

But I have traded them

For achievement.

And my fragile mediocre dreams 

Failed to withstand

The glare of brilliance.

© 2018. Swagata Tarafdar. All rights reserved.


This poem has been published at Women's Web. Click here to read.

Come July

Rotation and Revolution of the earth bring forth another July;
July - the cruellest of  all months,
The seventh month
In the calendar fluttering in the wall.

Seven is a magical number,
Like the seven steps around the sacred fire,
Or the delusional togetherness for seven lifetimes.

This seventh month is magical too,
And enigmatic,
Creating illusions of making the earth fecund,
Bringing the promise of incessant downpour.

The July sky is overcast again
With clouds pregnant with the hope of rain,
But the water-drops coming down
Don't always soothe the frayed nerves,
For this July brings only acid rain;
Corroding the soul,
Bit by bit,
Slowly,
Silently.


© 2018. Swagata Tarafdar. All rights reserved.