No matter how much we advance, create laws, build walls, or cover her body with clothes, out there, she remains vulnerable. Women’s Day – a whole day allotted to her. So what? Does that change a thing? Anything at all?
Every woman has been objectified and looked down upon by someone, somewhere in their life. Even the most powerful ones are spared. I have heard my own colleagues talking low lives about the director of the organization I worked for, just because she was a woman. They think that a woman who clears the UPSC is still dumb and should be in the kitchen or bed or she just gets things done only through using her body. And speaking of myself, I have endless tales to tell on this topic, and so does every woman. But only a few manage to express them.
One such brave lady is Taranjit Kaur. She is an Indian actress, best known for her role in Raju (2011), a Student Oscar Academy Award-winning short film. Taranjit has played a major role in the critically acclaimed film, Ankhon Dekhi (2013), directed by Rajat Kapoor, which was adjudged to be the second-best film in 2014.
The actress has many talents of which one is writing and reciting poetry. On Women’s Day, she took to the stage on the contemporary poetry platform – Unerased Poetry to narrate the horrors women face in their life.
“When I was touched” – Taranjit’s poem starts with the many precautions women are enforced to take to avert the evil eyes and yet scanned by almost every male. And then she goes on to speak up for women of every age and strata who were touched despite reluctance or knowledge.
She strikingly emphasizes how the men who are trusted within a family or in daily life turn out to be villainous, and how women tremble in fear, failing to raise their voice.
And she calls out those men, whether known or strangers, and tells them that they have no idea that what they do actually mentally scars a woman, and not just exteriorly.
And this is her narration…
Unerase Poetry has been doing a great job for the past few years by bringing us a whole bunch of fearless poets. The poetries are both in Hindi, and English and are based on human emotions, and sometimes also on social messages like that of Taranjit’s.