Talk Dirty to Me
Suryatapa Mukherjee writes about the falsity of purity in our largely saffron country.
When I was in class 2,
I wrote ‘I love you’
And sent it to a girl.
She called it dirty.
She said ‘eww’.
And into the bin, it flew.
In boarding school,
Some of my girl friends
Slept in the same bed
For far too long.
And the warden
Striped them with her cane.
A student called an intervention.
They both talked about diseases.
They all called it dirty.
Tell me, baby,
When they ask about your first crush,
Do you think about legality?
Baby, you see,
I’m dirty.
Courts agree.
Put those handcuffs on me.
377 is the safe word
Of our colonised society.
My father hangs paintings
Of Hanuman and Mecca
On the walls of his Church.
I mean, his place of
Business.
His biggest Muslim client
Comes to our house.
And we serve him
Like everyone else.
We went to his son’s wedding.
But my father ran out
Before the Muslim crowd
Could suffocate his Brahmin skin.
And the biryani that night
Stank so bad,
I told my Muslim boyfriend
That it must have been beef.
You see, to wear that white thread
Around your torso,
You must practice
Bigotry.
It’s all about purity.
But I’ve been a bad girl, baby.
I’ve loved Muslims
And tasted that forbidden meat.
Lynch me like I’m filthy.
Beef is the unsafe word
Of our saffron society.
Oh, purity
Reminds me of
Untouchability:
A fun little game.
The Savarna shouldn’t even step
In the shadow of the casteless.
That earns you a trip to the Ganges.
So, don’t touch the man
Who cleans your toilet.
My Brahmin friends
Complain about reservation.
They say Brahmin
is the new beggar
On the block.
But they’re here,
Working abroad
Or getting a second degree.
And every Indian here
Is upper caste.
How does that work?
And they still flaunt it -
The B-word.
But the C-word
Is dirty.
The news reports Dalit deaths and rapes
Like we’re grinding them for a national game.
But it has nothing to do with caste.
And it doesn’t happen where I live.
Deny, deny, deny.
But not my name, baby.
Say my name, baby.
I know you like my surname, baby.
Let’s play master and servant.
Think before you touch me.
Reverse-casteism is the safe word
Of our Savarna society.
Every time they talk ‘dirty’,
Listen and look closely.
You might catch them
Stripping someone
Of humanity.
When Suryatapa Mukherjee is not trying to get people to call her Shurjotopa, she is reporting news, writing fiction, performing poetry or acting. Her bucket list of problems to solve include sexism, LGBT+phobia, racism, communalism, casteism, classism, and it continues to grow. Once, she was interviewed as part of a series on bisexuality in India. As a result of that series, the UN included bisexual content in their global charter on LGBT rights. Journalistically, she has covered pressing issues such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Syrian refugee crisis, LGBT+ rights in Jordan and student immigration in the UK.
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