This poem deals with the difficulties faced by the transgender community. Here’s a humane poem by Kabir, on the people most misunderstood in South Asia, in Different Truths.
You have got two receptors of gender with you,
so what?
We are ‘we’ with two limbs,
But who sees your purity inside that draped saree,
Or beneath the small hair with interlinking chains,
If I say in the most naked way then I will say ‘No one’,
You do the best thing so that someone can tap your shoulder,
But it ends with your hand voluntary tapping your tired shoulder,
They wait for a code inside the blindfold of the law to grant you freedom,
When did freedom get its place in the inks of dictators?
Your attire provides you the ride you want,
Your melting or malign attitude runs parallel with your job,
Sound of your voice either instigates the muses of the shackles,
Or evokes the challenge of the masses,
Music turns its road with the gender you choose,
The operator of your food turns his/her back with the identity you choose,
Choice is now trapped beneath the zip or the buttons,
Your courage now is living the life of dilemma of which to reveal,
A million souls resting inside you now feeds on the raw skin,
To detonate the blast so that the inks can see what they once avoided,
The emblem which lies with four lions has got multiple identities,
The mark of gender was not applied on their forehead,
You live beneath their shade so that once you face the empty pen of law,
And the empty glass of prejudice.
©Kabir Deb
Photos from the internet
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