By Radhika Barman
Let’s talk of ‘rape’,
Let’s talk of rape,
but without ceasing its ‘marital’ prefix
When you talk of rape,
you often tend to think of an unfortunate, non-consensual, abuse between two individuals, who may even,
and, may not even be adults in some cases,
but what happens,
what happens, to those dreaded stories that lapse off post-midnight behind the chambers?
what happens to those hearts that tremble in fear, everytime, the door knocks,
what happens to that Indian wife of drought struck Rajasthan, who happens to be exhausted,
but can’t say no, for no stands for ‘patidev’s insult,
what happens to that body,
where wounded scars, are the only form of love bites available, as the owner has not much stock,
has not much stock of understanding,
has not much stock of gender sensitivity,
if not love.
what happens to that wretched heart that was still in its naive process of restitching its shreds,
only to be mistaken for an object of rightful gratification,
Behind the hearts of a billion women every night,
the graveyard stands,
sadly aloof & desolated, via the tremors of toxic masculinity,
That masculinity,
that hides away the ideas of gentleness, compassion, and humility.
Lest we choose to forget and often oversee,
that rape is a consequence of masculine power.
The power to overpeer,
the power to finish off, anything the beast chooses to perceive,
as something inferior,
which is not necessarily an object of lust but has been reduced down to.
And in case you are still wondering what’s the name of that graveyard, it’s marriage.
Marriage- an eight-lettered word,
that often stands as a synonym of success,
but ends up substituting for the five-lettered ‘death’.
‘Death’- not necessarily of the flesh,
blood & of course genital collarbones, but most of the soul.
That soul which happens to have sheltered itself within the toxic walls of what we call “love”,
That soul that comforts itself, not by the lovable arousals of her beloved,
but of patriarchy.
That patriarchy that every time,
comes between love & lust,
consent & consent giver,
for we recognize not,
what’s love,
for we recognize not,
what’s not love,
only to be mistaken, the night after, that it was only power- the power of a man,
that love which chose to willfully justify itself,
under the carpet of what we have named – “sexual gratification”.
Yeah, all good and fine,
but what about the soul, does it not have a voice or should it not have one?
Let’s talk of rape,
but without ceasing its ‘marital’ prefix.
