Perfect Prison

by Anupam Singh, translated from Hindi by Areeb Ahmad

Jens Peter Olesen

A house opens like a prison. It closes like a prison. Silence has been scrawled on the faces of women, their breath held, crawling in my dreams.

A man with a vain visage on whose face is visible many other faces. Lines of red tighten his eyes, laughter lies behind his moustache.

This is neither a jail, nor is man a jailer. Still, it is a perfect prison. Who knows from what places women have been brought and imprisoned here.

Washing the blood off of each other’s bent backs, women massage ointment. They cling to balconies like lizards. Drying wounds have colonised their backs.

They hang from the ceiling fans like the dangling buckets attached to a well’s pulleys. The smell of their breath has turned the air stuffy.

I am looking for the prison keys though I myself hid them far out of my reach. Having pledged my soul, I am searching for my eyes.

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Anupam Singh was born in the Pratapgarh district of Uttar Pradesh in 1986. She went to Allahabad University for her higher education and did her research work from Delhi University. Her poems have been regularly published in prestigious Hindi newspapers and magazines. She has been an active participant in women’s and people’s movements. She has also worked as an Associate Fellow in the Delhi Vidhan Sabha for three years.

Areeb Ahmad is a Delhi-based writer, critic and translator. He is an Editor-at-Large at Asymptote and a Books Editor at Inklette Magazine. Most of their writing can be found on their bookstagram, a true labour of love. His work has appeared in Gulmohur Quarterly, Scroll.in, The Caravan, Business Standard, Hindustan Times, and elsewhere. Areeb is @bankrupt_bookworm on Instagram and @Broke_Bookworm on Twitter.