Tattooed with Taboos: An Anthology of Poetry by Three Women from Northeast India

By Chaoba Phuritshabam, Shreema Ningombam and Soibam Haripriya

This anthology of poems by Chaoba Phuritshabam, Shreema Ningombam and Soibam Haripriya titled 'Tattooed with Taboos' speaks of the specific angst of the times. The poets use the personal as a tool to document the changing frames of society and its practices. Thematically divided into three sections'Tattooed with Taboos', 'Angst for Homeland' and 'Love and Longingness' the anthology is an articulation of the desire to trespass spaces denied to women in the personal and the public. Accepted symbols of power are questioned through an exploration of the self. As the title of the anthology suggest there is a play on having to tread the tightrope between the regime of taboos and the equally opposing move towards deification. One of the first ways in which the attempt has been made is through detachment of morality from sexuality. The second section depicts the irony of the homelandthe flux of an inability place this land called home in a stable emotional paradigm. The last section takes up love as disembodied, standing alone connected neither to a person nor an object, nor to the memory of anything tangible. The anthology captures through the various themes a non-linear chronology of desires.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing India
• Release date: Jul 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781482848519

Book preview

TATTOOED WITH TABOOS

An Anthology of Poetry by Three Women from Northeast India

Copyright © 2015 by Chaoba Phuritshabam; Shreema Ningombam; Soibam Haripriya

Cover Design: Kapil Arambam

First Edition: 2011

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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www.partridgepublishing.com/india

Contents

Preface

Introduction

One Year of Tattooed with Taboos

TATTOOED WITH TABOOS

Soibam Haripriya

1. After the Wedding

2. Five Days’ Untouchable

3. Are You Pleased

4. I Died a Little

5. I, Icon

6. Green and Yellow Buses

7. His and Hers

8. Green Kangkhand

9. Of Clothes and Robes

10. Apologies

11. Three Questions

Shreema Ningombam

12. Sublime

13. One Last Time

14. Seven Witches

15. Unburdening the Dead Spirits

16. Bronze Pillar and the Crystal Fairy

17. In Red

18. Untamed

19. The Other Revolutionary

20. The Eye

21. In Defiance

22. To the Ema Lairembi

23. One Thousand and One Nights

Chaoba Phuritshabam

24. The Maiden Mother

25. Sati

26. Midnight Monsoon

27. Fruits of Your Taste

28. When Moirang Khamba Met Krishna

29. Questions on Her

ANGST FOR HOMELAND

Chaoba Phuritshabam

30. Between Two Flags

31. Freedom

32. Patriot of my Land

33. Operation Summer Storm

Shreema Ningombam

34. Mother

35. Blooming

36. Fading Landscape

37. Rainbow

38. One Day, Ema

39. Broken

40. A New House in a New Country

Soibam Haripriya

41. … and We Leave Patches

42. The End

43. Another Polish for My Nails

44. September Still

45. Fragments

46. Join Magazine Secy

47. Beginning

48. Nambul Turel

49. Lets Play

50. My Friend

LOVE AND LONGINGNESS

Shreema Ningombam

51. The Last Exchange

52. Your Coming

53. August Night

54. Becoming of You in Me

55. Awaited One

56. To My Beloved

57. Oh! Miserable March

58. Beneath the Chattra

59. Nomads and Their Caravan

Chaoba Phuritshabam

60. To the One in Love

61. My Red Comrade

62. Renunciation

63. Season of Love

64. Untitled

65. Rain comes Down

66. Yet For Another Womb!!

67. Uncertainty

Soibam Haripriya

68. Seeking an End

69. A Death of My Own

70. Time

71. To The Researcher

72. Without You

73. Prayers

74. Remnants

75. I will Take the Leap

76. Footsteps

77. My Wayward Sibling

About the Authors

For women on thresholds and beyond; across space, time and borders

Preface

Manipur, a princely state before its merger with India on October 15, 1949 was a backdrop of the Second World War which was at that time locally known as Japan lan (war). In another obscure event in the history of India’s freedom struggle Indian National Army ventured till Moirang, the very place where Khamba and Thoibi legend is rooted.

The rise of secessionist movement in various parts of the region has provoked one of the harshest militarisation from the Indian state. People have been bearing the effects of these tussles between the state and the non-state armed groups. The nude protest by twelve women on July 15, 2004 in front of Kangla fort against the rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama had left an ineffaceable picture on the minds of the outsiders within India and beyond. Ironically amidst all these turmoil the Northeast India is now harked on as an important gateway to Southeast Asia in the wake of India’s Look East Policy.

But there is much more to the imagination and construction of the Northeast region. The case of Manipur is marked by continuity in a painful juncture. Irom Sharmila has been fasting for more than a decade in her struggle to repeal Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA). This peculiar circumstance has produced multifarious forms and themes of expressions. While its people have been trampled upon by socio-political turmoil; there is a multitude of dissenting voices both fearful and redeeming at the same time. The turmoil, ironically, has been churning out literature and various forms of art.

For many reasons not difficult to fathom, women have been made to surrender their individualities at the altars of socio-political violence and overarching patriarchal structure. There are many writing by women and on women but there