I am looking for opulence
The tags of success
Houses, cars, and a bank balance heavier than a grieving heart
Looking for all of it
Of course, with my eyes shut
How pretty it feels
To be a careerist woman
The glossy air of perfumed professionalism
No more the stench of burnt rice and messy lentil soup
How else to be equal to man?
I haven’t got a plan yet
(God forbid someone finds me out)
Without a gold-aimed focus, what will I be?
Just a girl waiting for the shehnai
A gold-digger whose housework fails to fall under GDP
To be looked down upon contemporaries
To be ruled over by the smug elders
There’s no room to aim for minor roles
We should only look for big things
Superimpose our sight with the really feminist aspirations
No more petty positions
You can be Lady Macbeth
Let your ambition kill you
But never the reverse
Of course, I’m still thinking
And looking
With my eyes shut
Padma, Qayanat, Lakshmi and Sheila
Have all the doors already shut to them
While I bicker in my cocooned metropolis
While I compare my feminisms
While I waste my words on them and myself
So before I open my eyes
To inevitably jump into the rat race
Running to be equal
To finally be a modern adult
A modern Indian woman,
Let me for one last time
Dream of smallness
Where I travel throughout the land
Settle anywhere, work anyhow
Just enough to keep alive
Free as a bird
Without any man or an elder snatching away my wings
Terrorizing my honour;
Free as rippling wind
Strong enough to turn into a storm anytime I choose
A wishful wanderer let loose
Let me dream of simplicity
Let me be.
mimimusing 