What You Are

I have paid the price

For being what I am,

I proclaim with pride.

I have withstood icy glances,

Burning words, entombing silences;

Merciless shutting of emotional doors;

Smouldering resentment that flashed cruelly

Like bloodstained swords in battle;

The sharp knives of induced guilt;

The tear bursts of hope denied;

The burden of sorrowful resignation.

But the path of my convictions beckoned,

I set out on the stony road to fulfil

Perhaps in part, the grasping tenacity of my will.

What delusions did I foster in my blind heart?

When did I become oblivious

To the call of need in loving eyes?

I now look around me and see all those

Who have paid the price too –

Not for being what they are

But for my being what I am.

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Malati Mathur

Malati Mathur is a retired professor of English; former Director of the School of Humanities, and Director, School of Foreign Languages, IGNOU, New Delhi, India. She is presently a Fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study (IIAS), Shimla and the Editor of its UGC Care listed journal, Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS). She has a PhD in Australian Literature, taught language and literature for over four decades; is a published poet and creative writer, and translates between Tamil, Hindi, and English with three Katha/Katha-British Council awards for translation. She is passionate about music and has a degree in sitar. Publications include Affinities (Volume of Poetry); Merging Meridians: AD Hope’s Poetic Vision (Criticism); Ustad Ali Akbar Khan: The Jodhpur Years (Biography); Remembering Amma; Reformatory (Translated Novels).