Girls are coming out of the woods

Tishani Doshi

Tishani Doshi’s poem is perhaps more appropriately read within a context of sexual violence, of the suppression of women’s voices through the negation of desire, of identity, even. The Guardian observes that she offer[s] an eloquent dissection of the body―its attributes, metaphors, deficiencies and contradictions―all delivered in chromatic, richly textured lines, in which the assured manipulation of rhythm and internal rhyme produces poems of remarkable balance and grace.”

Today, I’m framing this poem within a larger context of assertion by women. There was a report of how the NRC exercise is deeply flawed in terms of various faultlines - marginalising people, because of caste, class, religion and ethnicity. and gender. Just today, I read about how “Women of Assam are the worst affected due to faulty NRC implementation…”. The things is that “girls” have been “coming out of the woods” for long. They’ve been at the forefront of protests, political and social change, in every domain. A patriarchal and entitled gaze negates these voices, or repurposes them to belittle the contribution of women.

As the country burns (more than 60,000 people - mostly minorities - have been detained in UP alone, with sanction by the ruling BJP state government), one of the most beautiful placards in the sea of peaceful protests said “Women will destroy the Hindu Rashtra”.

This is the truth.

Read the full poem here