The colour of my dupatta

Image: Ujala Chowdhry

In my dupatta,

lies a life's full cycle.

In my dupatta,

lies life's invisible structures.

The colour of my dupatta,

is important to you.

You want it to be white

when I lose my precious child.

Black or grey,

for when I give my sister away.

If I wear the wrong dupatta

you will strip me off my integrity

you will make me change the damned dupatta

Till the colour is right

Till all my blood flows out from my veins

and onto my dupatta it rains,

the colour red.

In which you'll gladly let me be with a man in bed.

And choke me with it

When he is dead.

My dupatta colours people's imagination

If I'm naked underneath

People imagine invagination

If I'm naked underneath

The colour of my dupatta becomes redundant

The colour of my skin then raises the heat

And I've again been stripped of my integrity.

You see me as a whore,

fuck me to my skin's core,

and tear the dupatta that held my dignity.

In my dupatta lies a woman

A woman who is often seen as a demon

The dupatta wards off the evil

but can't ward off the inner devil.

I, eventually, learn to throw it away

And bare the truth that the dupatta was supposed to hide

I also learn to hang it on the side

And bare the breasts anyway

A white transparent dupatta

Now often covers the lust for thrust.