Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni quotes Amrita Pritam’s

There are many stories which are not written on paper, they are written on the minds and bodies of women

in the very beginning of her latest piece of art- Independence.
I read this line and the first thing I did was take a picture and send it to a close friend whose body has witnessed coups and mutiny, fought multiple wars, surrendered sometimes and celebrated victory the others. Stories worth a lifetime lacerated on the chest of a young girl even before her bosom started to show. I then looked at the quote for five minutes without flinching or even batting my eyes. My heart swell in its cavity and it was as if someone put a large stone on top of me. I got up, went to the window swung it wide open and took three deep breaths.
My friend had to shake me back to reality.
It has been a couple of days since and I am still thinking about what Amrita Pritam said and how I reacted to it. I am wondering when did my body become an archive for tales yet to be told and an exhibit for horrors never to be lived?

My mother lifts her shirt to expose the stitches from the four open abdomen surgeries she had before she even turned 40
My sister has scars on her head from that time she fell carrying a metal tray at work trying to prove that it is not just a man’s job
My nanny used to wear thick socks to hide the blisters on her feet from walking long hours to get to work
And my house help would make sure she hid the fact that her husband beats her every night
My cousin’s arm looks like that of a druggy because her skin is too delicate for all the hormonal injections she is taking to be able to conceive a child
My grandmother, 80, struggles with her motor skills but demands that she only be seen in sarees because she is too shy to put on “western clothes”
My childhood bestfriend wears the surgical incision on her neck with pride because she beat cancer at 18
Another one wears binders because she grew up hoping to get breast cancer just so she could have a masectomy done
Sometimes when the shower runs too hot and my mind too disturbed, I can almost feel his hands making way between my legs
I relive that night over and over again, not because I am not ready to forget and move on but because my body still remembers.
My aunt passed away two years ago but I hugged that woman for over 18 years and still, I am starting to forget how her arms felt wrapped around me but my thighs remember exactly how his long cold fingers felt for those unfortunate 5 seconds about three years ago

Is that all my story is supposed to be?
Will that be all my body remembers?
Are all women worth only their traumas?
Is that what binds us together?

Women from different walks of life, with different perpetrators or circumstances to blame but all bound together with shared pain and power.
And still never given the credit where it is due,
Still only worthy to be someone’s daughter, wife and mother
Still forced to break the glass ceiling every single day
Still made to prove our capabilities
Still reminded of all our weaknesses
Ahh women!
Always the supporting characters, almost never remembered.

They first tell me my body is a temple:
pure and serene
Then it becomes the family’s treasure:
respected, protected and full of honour
I am then a vessel to carry forward humanity:
sexual but only for the man who won me, supreme but only enough to bear a child
And now you tell me that my body is a museum.

So, I put up red ribbon around the big scars, and little post-its giving the context of my trauma
I guard it with all my power for this museum with all its artefacts is the first possession to be destroyed when your world is under attack.

Violated, molested, raped and maimed

My body is prone to bear the consequences of the damage caused on the minds and egos of those bigger and stronger and in more power than me
And while my sisters and I pay the price of our cursed kismat,
Build museums and log a detailed registry of all these tales on the surface of our naked bodies,
Men make history.
Their power and valour written and safeguarded in museums built with bricks and sand
Talked about and taught in classrooms for years to come

You may silence my voice, strip me of my rights, shatter my soul and bury my body
But remember, Amrita Pritam had also said,

कहानी लिखने वाला बड़ा नहीं होता, बड़ा वह है जिसने कहानी अपने जिस्म पर झेली है।

He who writes the stories isn’t great, the one who suffered the stories on their own body is.