Reclaiming my identity

/ Sameera

Ajmer, 2018

My identity is a mid-summer crisis
when water becomes a secular issue,
but nation wants to focus on the woman
in burkha
who stole two buckets of water from the neighbouring tap.
You see it’s not the water that bring us under the same roof,
but the clothes we wear.

I am an Indian.(loudly)
and a Muslim (whispers)
In the contemporary world,
my identity doesn’t go beyond these two words
unless I am being trolled.
Then I become feminist or a whore
and I should have been in Pakistan,
but no one gave me the ticket.
I giggled as I wrote this.
It’s so casual these days
that often I ask myself
Who am I without these two words?

This question shivers under the prayer rug
before I shrug it off
and bend down to pray.
Does my God know this?
He must have been thinking about me,
and all of us as well.
I have questions for Him
but I can’t ask
for my hands are busy replying to trolls
that doubt every inch of my existence.

I do not want to associate with any identity,
at least not today.
I want to be known as a person,
by my name that depicts only my name
and nothing else.
I want to be understood,
as a poet
and not told to condemn every incident.
So here as I write this,
I take my identity back from those people
who only know bigotry
as their agenda.
I throw propaganda in the dustbin.
I won’t be known as their will.

I refuse to become a prime time debate,
I refuse to become a religion under threat.
I choose to help people
because that’s the only way to live,
I choose to be sensitive
because that doesn’t mean I am weak.

I am
the title of my poems,
the endings of my stories,
the sunset over the orange building,
the sky filled with lilies,
and the earth shining with dew drops.

I am
the world I make when I dream
about lands of the other world
where I am free
to assert my identity
and will to become a human.
where people can look beyond
my minority reservation
for a government seat,
and choose me over others
for I am who they would love to be with.

I reclaim my identity,
as an Indian.
as an Indian muslim
with a hope that someone will look through
the layers of oppression I am hiding
and understand
almost with a heavy heart
that I am a human,
a poet who loves to write
about the issues of her own
and her community
not to gain attention and sympathy
but to make people understand
that kindness is the only way
they are supposed to live with.

©Sameera Mansuri 2020.

Written for a prompt response for NaPoWriMo 2020.

I suppose I can go beyond this worldly identity someday.

Happy reading.

All rights reserved. The poem and the image belongs to The Poetic Elixir

19 thoughts on “Reclaiming my identity”

  2. This poem has so much! The sense of identity issues, the sense of never belonging-it resonates with me. (Go back to East Pakistan ‘they’ shout at me) At times I just want to shut my ears, shut the voices but there is a storm brewing inside, a storm that consumes me. And then I remember and I guess you do too, that we have a voice, a voice that can scream silently, can shout quietly, to perhaps sow the seeds of change one grass blade at a time.

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    • It’s a bittersweet feeling to find someone who has suffered the same as you. I am sorry you have to go through this. It’s all heavy, I understand.
      This reminded me of a quote that I read “they buried us, but they didn’t know we were seeds.” We have a voice of change, although faint at times it holds much value. As long as we are here with our words we are bringing a change.🌿

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      • And I am equally sorry for you! You are right, it is bittersweet for it is never easy to have to prove where you belong. May be we are eternal nomads, seeking that elusive home.
        And that’s a beautiful quote, we will sprout and the our voices will whisper messages into the wind. 🙂 Stay well

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  5. So deep, painful, dramatic… and a lot more, yeah, we are in society and it will be like forever, but you chose the right thing at end, to not to think of them, you have to get to a higher road, so buckle up. you can do it… apna time ayega

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  6. This is extremely beautiful, Sameera.
    I was just flowing in the deepness of your words, every little details that you’ve put up from being an Indian loudly, to be a Muslim with a whisper.
    I heard you.

    Your way of going back to Pakistan but no one gave you the ticket hit so hard. Your issue about basic necessities hit even harder.

    It talked about more than words.

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