#CauseAChatter: 'Slamming patriarchy' - a poem on women empowerment

I was seven the first time I asked my family astrologer 

to read my palm, and my grandma laughed a tired laugh 

‘Run along,’ she said, ‘go play with your dolls‘

But it was the stars that had intrigued me

And I wondered what lay for me in store

So when I was fifteen, I asked once more

Only to be dismissed by Grandma 

My future, she said, did not lie in the stars

It lay in the curve of my breasts

The sway of my hips

The kohl in my eyes

The colour on my lips

And I wondered if only the men in the house

had lines on their palms

Lines that could be read

Charts that could be spread

In accordance with the sun, and the moon

and the planets, and the stars

And I wondered what lay for me in store

Was it wrong to wish for something more?

To wish a world where I could rule

To prove that I was nobody's fool

But Grandma laughed a tired laugh

Women, she said, had no right to dream

No matter how smarter than men they'd seem

They have no choice but to tame it down

Like the dolls whom we married to stuffed toy clowns 

In the play-pretend weddings we would organize

Never realizing or stopping to think twice

How close to life we played

But days and weeks and months passed by

And resolutes just got stronger

So the next time the family astrologer came visiting

I did not put forward my palm to be read

But instead displayed the medals I had won

The trophies I had bagged

Academics and sports, elocution and debates

There wasn't a single field I lagged

Proudly sauntering my way ahead

I'd carved fate lines for myself 

This time Grandma smiled, her eyes were gleaming 

She'd said girls shouldn't dream, but there I was, dreaming

She held my hands in hers now and softly cried

And I was only too happy that I had tried 

To break the stereotype that society had set

for girls, women, dreamers like me

Who had once wished for their palms to be read

And were now hoping for minds to be free

Of prejudiced ideas, and gender inequality

That had been plaguing the world for an eternity

It took time for her to understand 

But then Grandma took matters in her hand

and showed that astrologer the door

And that day what I realized, I say to you once more;

The stars can burn all they want

but they cannot stop you from trying

The planets, the sun, the moon aligned 

cannot dictate what you can do

The lines on your palm do not chart the course of your life

So draw your own lines instead and don’t allow them to limit you 

From trying, even when someone says 

you can’t, reach out for your dream 

For no matter how distant it may seem

There is thunder in your wings, darling

You are meant to kiss the sky

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This post is part of Blogchatter’s CauseAChatter.

For more of my poetry, you can check out my solo anthologies of poems here and here.