Ask Us How We Are Getting Home Tonight
Nupur Sawant calls out for solidarity and allyship through a powerful performance piece
After
the long hours at the office are done.
After
the extra classes at the college have been taught.
After
the DJ has taken the last request for the weekend.
After
the pride parade has been walked.
ASK US HOW WE’RE GETTING HOME.
After
the poetry slams are sung.
After
the comedy shows are closed.
After
the Women’s Marches have been marched.
After
Trans Visibility Days
ASK US HOW WE’RE GETTING HOME.
No, this is not about the means of transportation, honey.
This is about keys that wonder if they could be knives.
It’s about eyes that wonder if this cab has a central locking system.
It’s about hands that wonder if they have learned Ju Jitsu yet because it looked so easy on the television.
It’s about legs that wonder is they can run as fast as the heart.
Wonder,
We wonder why don’t you wonder how we are getting home tonight.
Because between these safe spaces and what we call home, is a valley they call streets.
Sometimes, after the thunderous applause has died,
Some Trans women don’t make it home.
Sometimes, after the peaceful nuanced debates have rested,
Some atheists done make it to the other side of the valley.
There is something vicious and vulgar about this valley —
It gulps its victims whole,
It muffles their cries,
It burps to the tune of blasphemy.
I
Just want to make it home from here.
So
Ask me how I am getting home tonight.
And I will text you when I get there.
Nupur Saraswat is a passionate stage performer, who brings dramatic hands and eyes to the stage along with her bold words. She is one of the finalists of Singapore’s National Poetry Slam 2015, and engaged by TEDx 2016 and UN Women Singapore for creative assignments. Her volatile words and performance method has been appraised by Javed Akhtar and Rahul Bose — both of whom she shared a stage with in 2016. At an age of 22, she is a lot of things — an environmental engineer, a writer, a recruitment consultant, and a spoken word artist. But more than anything else, she is ‘that girl with a flower in her curly hair at all times’. She runs her own brand of artist collective as ‘The Beasts of Bed and Battlefield’ and undertakes commissioned work.
