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4 for were we not the soil filled with the ache of longing for the seed, but instead we were coarsely used, our bodies brutalised, our souls numbed. GREAT NEWS : The Sahitya Akademi anthology that had started with WE as its nucleus, is finally here ! Thanks to Sahitya Akademi & Editor – Sudeep Sen , Congratulations poets, friends ! BRE And even our mothers denied us. In the hour of darkness, they cut off our hair, shaved our heads, burnt us on the funeral pyre, burnt us in our homes. Our brothers inherited the earth. We were disinherited of even our smallest shreds of humanity, the day we were born. Our parents cursed us. They educated our brothers, gave them the land and the houses, and the future, and the power and the glory. We were married off, we were mere pieces of property, passed from one family to another, to work and bear children, or. if we didn't bear children, to be cursed for our barenneas. No one looked into our eyes with love. If they had, they'd have heard our souls talk. Instead, all they said was She's hysterical. Women are like that, especially when they menstruate, especially when they stop menstruating, especially as they approach death. Copyright. Anna Sujatha Mathai (First pub in Life - on my Side of the Street. Sahitya Akademi. 2005.)

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