{"id":27315,"date":"2024-10-17T12:26:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-17T06:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/?p=27315"},"modified":"2024-10-17T17:25:44","modified_gmt":"2024-10-17T11:55:44","slug":"three-poems-by-unmana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/three-poems-by-unmana\/","title":{"rendered":"Three Poems: &#8220;I dreamt&#8230;&#8221;, &#8220;The day&#8230;&#8221;, and &#8220;Wedding Album&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>1<\/strong>. <strong>I dreamt I was gliding through a large resort with my best friend<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Unmana-IP-Oct-Gender-I-Dreamt-Recording.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><sub><em>Listen to a recording of the poem read out by the poet.<\/em><\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>on roller skates. She was a member but I felt wrong, like I was not supposed to be there. We weren\u2019t good on skates and we sat on a bench to catch our breaths. A little boy was dressed like a unicorn. He had a purple and gold outfit and a headband and little wooden horn painted dull gold. He spoke into his phone, to his father, the dream told me with absolute certainty. He said, I went into the neighbouring country and slew the monster. I wanted to tell him everything would be okay. Instead, I turned to my friend and said, I think I stopped talking to my parents today, and woke up on a long sob.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>2<\/strong>. <strong>The day my first novel is announced<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Unmana-IP-Oct-Gender-The-Day-My-First-Novel-Recording.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><sub><em>Listen to a recording of the poem read out by the poet.<\/em><\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The publisher posts a trailer, my fat heroine smoking, Pride Month in rainbow colours,<br>a moment I\u2019ve waited for <s>all my life,<\/s> okay, literally half my life,<br>I mean, I wasn\u2019t specifically waiting for this trailer, <s>not even this book,<\/s> just a book,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>my face is flaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><s>I\u2019m recovering from a flu rash<\/s><br>I\u2019m peeling myself like a clove of garlic, emerging new, green, thin-skinned.<br>I have broken out from my egg, my female pronouns, my invisibility, they lie<br>in shards that prick me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I was safe inside, and bored. Invisible and with nothing to see.<br>I haven\u2019t yet learned to crawl holding my soft belly to the ground. My scales are coming in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sling your stones. I will never be ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>3. Wedding Album<\/strong><br><em>After Bhanu Kapil<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-audio\"><audio controls src=\"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Unmana-IP-Oct-Gender-Wedding-Album-Recording.mp3\"><\/audio><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><sub><em>Listen to a recording of the poem read out by the poet.<\/em><\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>I always thought I\u2019d get married in a white mekhla-sador, the paht soft and warming, so in cool weather please. But I refused to go back, go \u201chome\u201d but it wasn\u2019t home, I refused to let a committee of relatives decide how I should be married, to let my mother spend money on a ritual display my body recoiled at, to have my boyfriend and his family surrounded by people who spoke in a language they did not understand. Instead, I got married in a pink and green sequinned sari my mother-in-law sent me, a sari I\u2019d never have bought for myself, in which I glow prettily, my young flesh like a ripe fruit, in photographs I pore over trying to recognise me. In a room of bureaucracy with old desks and files a brisk woman asks us to repeat the vow in a language neither of us know and my boyfriend, husband, does and how is that different from uttering what the bamun tells you to in Sanskrit and when it\u2019s my turn I ask, Hindi or English please, and I repeat after her in Hindi I take this man as my husband from today, and we sign an official register in this official room and when we step out my mother hugs me and cries ritually, just a little, and my husband, new husband, gives me his hand to shake and says, congratulations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We go home to my flat. I don\u2019t remember if he had moved his stuff already. Most of his stuff was always here anyway. They make us wait in the parking lot \u2013 his mother and sisters \u2013 and we make jokes. We are allowed up, finally, to rituals we had planned to avoid. Sindoor, mangalsutra. Look at the photo, a demure bride wrapped in a red sador.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A veil is red, so it is not a shroud. Now his family knows he lives with me. But I have lost something, something I\u2019m still missing, eighteen years later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-right\" style=\"font-size:12px\"><em>Cover Image: Photo by <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@jrkorpa?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Jr Korpa<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/a-blurry-image-of-people-walking-down-a-street-LCUCWH1VBOw?utm_content=creditCopyText&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_source=unsplash\">Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I always thought I\u2019d get married in a white mekhla-sador, the paht soft and warming, so in cool weather please. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":27326,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3401,4588],"tags":[503,26,837,25,957],"class_list":{"0":"post-27315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fiction-poetry","8":"category-gender-and-sexuality","9":"tag-body-image","10":"tag-gender","11":"tag-gender-roles","12":"tag-sexualities","13":"tag-womanhood"},"menu_order":0,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27315"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27412,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27315\/revisions\/27412"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tarshi.net\/inplainspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}