FIRE AND ICE

To

A Voice I have heard often on the streets

Very rarely do I come across people whose souls glow like the amber flames of a cackling fire—burning brighter and brighter, louder and louder with every broken twig you throw in. They are alive, in every way that a human being can be called ‘alive’. And then I have come across people who are like ice, frozen solid in the mire of their passions. They have such drive and determination. No lies with them, only the bare truth. They are not mean either. They would melt if you only brought them close to the fire. It just takes a bit of effort.

And then I met you.

Thinking about you is difficult without the ghost of a smile appearing on my lips.

You, with that ridiculous laugh and a head full dreams—it was endearing to watch. There was such innocence in your ways. How many twisted ways can she possibly find to poke fun at life, I used to think. It was like watching a child chase after two dogs called ‘misery’ and ‘life’, giving them a run for their money. Positively hilarious. And I used to enjoy laughing with you, laughing at you. Who didn’t?

You are one of those lucky people who can die knowing that everyone will miss them and their jokes at the funeral. Guaranteed.

It was then that I decided—you were all about life and living, so you must be fire.

But I was wrong.

One day you mused about theater. The very next day, everything changed. At that first performance under the sun, you meandered into a different territory.

It was not just about the fire anymore, only the jokes and chortles that everyone had been willing to see up until that point. I realized that this was serious. These were the fruits of a passion and determination that only people with souls like frigid ice have. You said that you wanted something, and you actually stretched far enough to reach it.

I don’t know much about theater. I don’t know much about acting. But I do know how to ‘feel’. And you reached deep into the recesses of my heart to pluck out rare emotions. You have done this to countless others. That is how I know who you are. I know that’s what everyone calls an ‘actor’. 

There is a plus, now that I know how deep your bond with writing and the native language is. You write in one language, I write in another. But we both speak the language of emotions. You even know how to enact on paper, to make your words obey the emotions. They dance to the tunes of musical Urdu and terse Hindi.

Now, after one year, you look like a complete picture to me.

I don’t think you’re just ice, or just fire. Not anymore.

You are a bit of both actually, a rare combination.

You made me realize that everything is here and now. A moment of the present is nothing but the past melting into the future—an in-between. It is not a destination. And when this moment slips from my hands, I could be left with nothing.

That is why each and every moment counts.

I think I will leave it at that. This is probably all too much for you, but it is my perspective of the truth. Days, months and years later, we can laugh at all of it together.

I could have compared you to a cliched flower, I guess. Or poetry, maybe. But that would not be fair.

In fact, you know what, it would not even be close.

Yours Truly

   

DEFINING WOMANHOOD...

I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?... that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from?... From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

                                                                                                                              - Sojourner Truth

Imagine dark women coming up from the murky backwaters of slavery, trudging along a winding, muddy path, heading towards a bleak and faded sunset. And beyond that sunset lies more disappointments. This is exactly why I used to think that African American feminism was a thing apart from commonplace feminism. That these women had the specter of slavery following them around. They were more powerful because of it. That when they began, theirs was an intimidating, louder, hoarser cry for rights. Far too loud and much too hoarse to bear.

But I had not yet come across that life-changing speech.

In eleventh grade, I was gently nudged forth into a speech-making competition. It was called, quite ostentatiously, “Golden Words”. It was a charade—some of the poorest imitations you would ever see, of some of the world’s greatest leaders. But someone had to be a dear and dress up for it. So I did.

The stage was set.

I saw Nehru, Napolean and Martin Luther strut past me.

Till date, I don’t think it was as much ‘me’ choosing to become Sojourner Truth and enacting her popular “Ain’t I a Woman” speech, as it was Truth herself, walking up to me. A strange black dress and a string of fake pearls. That was all it took to look like the nineteenth century women rights activist.

It was harder to ‘be’ her, however. It was a different ball game altogether.

Even if I had to modulate my voice to sound like an angry Oprah Winfrey, to stand on tiptoe and make myself appear larger and bolder, and even though I was declared the winner that evening—even after all this, it was hardly a victory to call mine. I had spent hours in a front of a mirror drinking in the historical speech, till it was lodged in the tiniest crevice of my soul.

Until I had walked up on that stage, I had no idea what it took to be a woman. I thought I was going to be seventeen forever, and a long dead slave woman’s words were hardly of relevance.

I was very, very wrong.

Sojourner Truth’s words caught me by my hair. They drove home the fact that women are not black, white, brown or yellow. There is no slave woman or free woman. A woman is simply a human being—bag of bones, flesh and sinew. And if a woman is just a woman inside, no two ways about it, then how can there be multiple types of feminism? All we ask for, and for that matter what anyone asks for, is the right to ‘be’ ourselves.

Truth did not just get me my first “first position” in the last year of school, amongst a sea of countless competitions I had competed in so far. She made me walk a mile in her shoes. She made me relive history, not just learn it. When my voice reverberated through that room, it was unrecognizable. It was her spirit speaking through me. I could have hardly called myself the same person because neither had I ever hurled out words so loud, nor had I believed in their power so genuinely, ever before in my life.

I think I made her proud.

It is for this reason that I believe in my ability to dream, look and talk like a nineteenth century slave women rights activist. She and I have much in common. This ancient thread binds womankind across the centuries, across seven continents and beyond the tenets of history.

I am Sojourner Truth, and she is I.

Forever.

Yours truly