Portrait with Us | by SriJani Mitra

Our silences have tired now. We are tiring and walking from the woods to the streets, we have given up that search for that very palki. That very security and belonging that was never ours. We are displaced women, we are missing girls, we are those very survivors that you objectify in your ecstasies of power. We now laugh at your hollow might and staggering, false stride. We have leopards breathing between our thighs. We unwrap our tarnished stories and lie them on the foliage of ground like embroidered sights. We write odes to our mothers and sisters who fought for our rights but were silenced for ages. We bring portraits of women from times immemorial. We talk of harems and autonomy. We are unafraid to be Baijis or unconventional wanderers. We are balls of fire burning in the ire of protest. It’s time for us to reclaim this land where queens have ruled, where creation speaks for itself how we have borne your bloody lives. We now look deep into our perpetrator’s eyes and take out the dazzle of coal with just a sight. With just a word from the past, from stories untold. We are now resilient and splashing colours as we make love to the sky and admire the beauty in fighting for our rights as we emancipate like gestalt, wholesome souls.

Srijani Rupsha Mitra is a writer in India. Her works are published in magazines like It GetsBetter, Chatauqua Journal, and Birmingham Arts Journal. Find her at @mitrasrupsha on Twitter (X), and @srupsha__ on Instargam.

Editor's Note: A palki is a palaquin, sedan chair, or litter. The Baijis (or tawaif in Urdu) were a class of educated dancer courtesans forced to survive by prostitution during the British colonial Raj.

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