Kerala had a tradition of taxing Dalit women who covered their breasts. Nangeli rebelled against it by cutting her breasts in protest.
They ask me why I cut
my Breasts, as if the story
begins there.
As if blood is the cause
and not a consequence.
They ask me why I cut
my Breasts, and I
look at my sickle that
wasn't sharp enough
to cut anyone else.
They ask me why I cut
my Breasts but they don't
tell you how the kingdom
decided to measure
them first-
I remember the hands
of the accountant
fondling my breasts,
to assess how much tax
I had to pay for bearing
them on my chest.
I remember, how at the
cost of our humiliation,
the tax had to be served on
a banana leaf with utmost
respect.
The untouchability,
no temple entry,
hundred other taxes levied
besides other subjugations-
They even forbade
the shade of certain to
trees for us.
So it boils my dead heart,
when they ask me why
I cut my Breasts.
And I say, they deserved
a spectacle-
A blood oozing wound
might stick better in memory
than slow oppression fits
into history.
But why does history
remember the breasts
and forget the tax?
Why does it remember
the blood and forget
the caste?
You may ask the same
question too.
and in all humbleness,
I shall serve you my
severed breasts too.
That's how I want to break
the fourth wall to ask
you this-
You've been subjugated
by similar taxes too.
What's the mode of protest?
Why your dicks intact yet?
Or you've come already cut?