It is sacred.

People told me. For a woman. “Cover it!”

Whole Nine Yards

• one for tradition
• one for culture
• one for modesty
• one for safety
• another one for heritage
• one for society
• one for almighty
• one for festivities

and another one, well that just looks good.

Saree – a metamorphosis of the cloth, a pharaonic burden – draped in the layers of culture, modesty and society.

An attempt – to blanket the body, my female body, to shroud it – in silence, custom and compliance.
With no means and papers, unimagined and unheard of,
I use the vermillion on my head to bellow.

The skin on my belly, trying to breathe the last wisps of freedom, becomes my first slate.

Down below, the little skin on my feet, my toes and my ankle, the second sheet of my tale, of totems and iconographs.

When left with none other, the means of my oppressor – the attire undergoes the ultimate mutation – becomes my tool, when I start scrawling on the whole nine yards, uncovering what it began to bury.

Motifs, symbols, words, experiences NOT redundant insignias and hieroglyphs.

Unyielding, I write, with the only thing that is mine – reclaiming my body.