Sadda haq, aithe rakh!
Give me what’s my right, right here, right now! Rhythmic, rousing, pithy and propulsive, it was our rallying cry as we pounded the pavements outside the offices of a college Principal or the Superintendent of the Girls’ Hostel. Our demands were simple: no diktat on what clothes we could wear, no 9 pm curfew by which to return to our rooms, no discrimination between students, girls or boys …
Three decades later, today, I was back to pounding a pavement and raising rallying cries. Only, the pavement was Fifth Avenue, Manhattan, I was pounding it with friends, yes, and my daughter in tow, and our cries were in English.
Not my pussy!
Can’t build the wall, hands too small!
Hey-hey, ho-ho, Donald Trump has got to go!
You get the import, don’t you? I have journeyed across years, crossed oceans, traversed continents, and travelled from the third world, presumably, to the first. And yet, my fight with patriarchy continues.
And my question, as that of my sisters, remains the same: Why are you so obsessed with my uterus?
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