It was a chilly Sunday afternoon, the sort of weather which is pretty common in Bangalore. I sat on my bed with my laptop opened in front of me, a series of thoughts flowed in but the perfect idea wasn't hitting me. I wanted a story, a story that spoke about pain and sorrows but not glorifies sadness.
The world isn't a beautiful picture it has dents and blemishes too. I was just sixteen back then, discovering a whole new world and the evils it contained. Then an idea struck me, I always wondered about prostitution and how the world "slut" was used so commonly as an insult among everyone. This word was used in school by children my age to describe another girl who had many male friends, it meant conclusion to the ">judgemental looks by teachers who supervised these girls and a disappointed sigh left them when they realised they could do nothing about "her".
Sexists Slurs
I always thought that was unfair to them and I Googled "prostitution". This was followed by two days of intense research, reading numerous articles and statistics, reading anecdotes and watching documentaries. This journey was commenced by me with the goal of writing an article but it concluded with me penning down my heightened emotions resulting in a poem I genuinely appreciate and wish the world would see it as well. With zeal and excitement, I showed to my mother and she said, "Is it okay to use obscene language as your poetry's title?" But this was the mentality I wanted to tackle. Why was the word "slut" something unacceptable? It should be a word of valor to describe the struggles these women go through on a daily basis just to survive.
Here is the poem:
SLUT.
She is beauty, she is grace
She is that beast who has been caged.
She is anger, she is pain
She isn’t the hideous tag she has gained.
She is forced, she is scared.
She is letting all her emotions fade.
She is a slut.
Draping her saree in the most seductive manner
But her heart, that precious little heart wants her to cover herself completely but her hands begin to stammer.
Her face overloaded with make up to attract predators
Her mind, that brilliant mind explaining to her inner self she is just being a creditor.
Her red lipstick leaving stains on that hideous humans bleached bedspread
She recalls the first time her tiny legs which were forcefully spread.
Red is the color of love
But all she can think of is her hymen tearing apart as she screeched “amma where are you now?”
But yes, she is a slut.
Her delicate hands want to be held and not tied,
She wants to be bombarded with affection and not involved in prostitution,
She wants to fulfil her dreams she dreamt as a child and not be a single mother with a profession to hide,
She is tired of being, strong she wants to expose those bruises which have been hidden far too long,
Her body shouldn’t be some lustful figure, her humanity makes her way bigger.
And yet she is a slut.
So I plead you all to rethink this word and the intensity it carries before throwing it around as an insult.
The views expressed are the author's own.
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