Mother, why do we cry? by Mahika Sharma (India, 20)

Trigger warning: mentions of assault​

The first time my mother cried, I told her about the madwoman in the attic,
The inherent darkness enveloping her entire existence as she got engulfed in the banality of
her life.
The woman who contemplated through a man’s voice, the woman whose voice screamed out
the rasp crisp reality of her essence, which revolved around the madness of her simplicity, the
yearning for her ‘wild’ nature. 
I explained how she etched the routine of her everyday life on a piece of paper, a delicate,
white, thin symbol of rebelliousness that she permitted herself in secrecy. 
The paper which, when written upon, held the power to liberate her thoughts from the
husband she was coerced into, the children she had endured the pain for. A paper, which, if
discovered, would shroud her behind the attic’s darkness forever because it was forbidden to
imagine she possessed a sense of self, a consciousness that didn’t stem from her husband. 
Yet, she wrote and as she wrote, she wept for the sons she had given birth to– the ones who
would never be her own though she tore herself apart for them. She wept for the daughters,
stashing away some papers behind her pillow, for she knew, one day her daughters would be
where she was, confined in the attic, forbidden to cry. 
Mother, if it made her isolated and blue, why did she cry?

​I remembered a wedding I had been to, the one where everyone laughed along with the bride
as she pledged herself to her husband.
She told me how much she adored him, declaring him the nicest man she had been with, one
capable of liberating her from the innate simplicity of her being. 
I began to speak but my mother’s gaze silenced me. She did not let me tell her about the
countless women entering a marriage with dreams brimming in their minds and leaving with
scars haunting their bodies. The women who bore the marks of stretching themselves thin
trying to appease another woman who was ready with her legs spread wide, poised to
reproduce another victim of the trauma she had endured from her husband’s mother.
How her mother, my mother, our mother’s mother, all were welcomed with crimson flowers
yet, left with feet stained red of the blood that spilled from the bitten tongues, concealing
secret sentences, spoken in hushed whispers to the men who desired nothing but an ordinary
day in their common houses far from their contributing, financially well-endowed work life. 
I yearned to tell her that the ordinary niceness of a man can be shattered by the evil institution
in which he is bound. How after his death, the same mother who despised your ties to her son
would bind you to his funeral pier to perish, as without him, you were as white as the cloth
that would adorn you.
Mother, if her departure brings her joy, why do we cry?

She tenderly sat me down and told me that witnessing her leaving makes them remember
their own wedding– their own departure.
I scoffed at her misery and ridiculed her sentimentality, for you see, I was born of a woman
but named by a man. Though I had the eyes of my mother, my gaze mirrored the patriarchal
one my father bore, and though my body was nurtured and woven within my mother, my
father decided when it was time to conceal it from the prying eyes of other fathers. 
But, I am not supposed to question the authority of the patriarch who governs our house with
his glistening coins, adorns his armor daily to combat the capitalist nature within himself,
ensnared by the perceptions of others.
Mother, if his screams are the ultimate manifestation of his love, why do we cry?

Do we cry to remember? Are we reclaiming our agency through tears? Honoring all the
departed souls who were stranded in the attics?
The women trapped behind grotesque wallpapers, eternally doomed to seek social liberation
from a piece of paper. The women who are burnt to the ground for their existence is
inconsequential without a man. Do we cry because we recognize the pattern?

I remembered the time when I was twelve and a stranger grazed his hand up my young,
powerless, unsuspecting thigh. My mother grasped my autonomy back from him.
She understood my silent answers and hugged my gender’s miserable fate out of my shaking
body. 
That night, we locked ourselves away, shedding tears about the countless men who mistook
our gender for our willingness. 
We recounted the mythological demons with the ten heads who abducted a woman to punish
her man, for a woman’s pain was non-existent when weighed against the greater good of
humanity. We compared them to the one-faced humans outside and wondered what greater
good stemmed from a twelve-year-old’s suffering.
She assured me not to worry because the mightiest being of the universe was a Goddess, one
who descended to Earth with her bloodstained hands and drank the blood of all those whose
masculinity depended upon our ungrazed thighs.
I, however, simply stared at her with questionable eyes. Yet today, I muster the strength to ask
because Mother, if we are all incarnations of the liberated Goddess who slayed demons with
her seven hands, why then, do we cry?





Mahika is an up-and-coming author and literature student from Delhi, India. Currently pursuing a degree in English literature at the University of Delhi, Mahika has always had a passion for storytelling and the written word.

Mahika enjoys reading other people's writing when she's not studying or writing. She also finds inspiration from her academic study of literature, her own life as a woman in India, her observations of the social and political environment around her, and other forms of creative expression like film, art, and music. Along with her roommate and their two pets, she currently calls Delhi home.
As an undergraduate student of literature, Mahika is just beginning to explore the depths of her literary potential, and her poetry hopes to showcase her narrative talent and her passion for the written word. With a bright future ahead, Mahika is determined to become a major voice in the world of literature.
Mahika is an up-and-coming author and literature student from Delhi, India. Currently pursuing a degree in English literature at the University of Delhi, Mahika has always had a passion for storytelling and the written word.

Mahika enjoys reading other people's writing when she's not studying or writing. She also finds inspiration from her academic study of literature, her own life as a woman in India, her observations of the social and political environment around her, and other forms of creative expression like film, art, and music. Along with her roommate and their two pets, she currently calls Delhi home.
As an undergraduate student of literature, Mahika is just beginning to explore the depths of her literary potential, and her poetry hopes to showcase her narrative talent and her passion for the written word. With a bright future ahead, Mahika is determined to become a major voice in the world of literature.