The Veil (Burqa) Poem by AMITAVA MAZUMDAR

Eyes when opened
Gets blinking like
The lights of ambulance
Making ways serpentine
Everyday towards a window of freedom.

That's the only wayout
You could have from your eyes,
You could enjoy only;
The bearded cleric said
While reading the laws of
Shariat, my fate and my future.
Thereafter, from that day
I never asked my father
Never even to my husband
I was told sternly not to.

The veil that I'm used to
Even gets cold-hard on me
Stuck upon like an
Embittered tongue;
But I could cast it off only
In the bed with my husband
He's my master to unveil me
Peel me off like an onion
All my skinned reluctance and shame.

That black cover is my dignity
My fate my past my present my future
Prevents lewd eyes to peep inside
My cheeks, my neck, my back
My cleavage, my breasts,
My private parts, everywhere ……

But I carry a veil
Inside me invisible
Harder and stronger
Than the one
I wear Islamically.

It lifts me up
Above the mighty Himalayas
Takes me down
To the bluest deep of the Arabian
Perched me upon the green branches
Where birds are metamorphical
Scuds meinside the mysterious clouds
Across the limitless skies.

My veil can go unveil
When I could do what others could
Wearing anything unbothered, unafraid
Perhaps a skirt, a bikini,
Anything that I could grab
And clung it happily,
But I know I couldn't
Like my mother, my sister,
My daughter my granddaughter
The veil is there
Like a dungeon, a jail
Almost medieval.