Shabnam Nadiya's Blog, page 3

"Feelings grow old slowly, not as fast as skin."

“Feelings grow old slowly, not as fast as skin.”

- The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud

Happy International Women’s Day! Let’s celebrate what we...

Happy International Women’s Day! 

Let’s celebrate what we have achieved, and all that we will.

Won’t You Celebrate with Me BY LUCILLE CLIFTON

won’t you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model.born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed. 

(Photo by Iffat Nawaz)

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"Gypsy silver. The bias cut in bottle green, crown of flowers, kalamkari acquired in the sickness..."

“

Gypsy silver. The bias cut in bottle

 green, crown of flowers, kalamkari acquired in the sickness

 of another nostalgia. Skirt, sunlit as Pondicherry ochre.

Guile of womanly sway in nonchalant denim. Jacquard

    velvet bought when too young to wear it.

Mandarin collar. Basque translucent as rose quartz.

”

- Sharanya Manivannan, ‘Poem for Clothes Left in Another Country’, published in The Missing Slate (via themissingslate)

"My neighbor’s an invisible man who takes it upon himself, every weekend, to read the Koran at..."

“My neighbor’s an invisible man who takes it upon himself, every weekend, to read the Koran at the top of his voice all night long. Nobody dares tell him to stop, because it’s God who’s making him shout.”

- The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud

"As far as I’m concerned, religion is public transportation I never use."

“As far as I’m concerned, religion is public transportation I never use.”

- The Meursault Investigation, Kamel Daoud

The Other Wife, by Colette

The Other Wife, by Colette:

Intensely female and feminine, short, with a sudden shot of uncertain yearning–this story was my introduction to Collette. I never did (due to lack of access) follow up on my desire to read more of her work. This story, which I translated into Bangla, was also (allegedly) the first ever translation of mine that got published. I say allegedly because I sent it to Sangbad Shahitya Samoyiki, and never heard back. Then several months later someone casually mentioned they had liked my Collette translation. I never did manage to track it down. Nevertheless, this remains a story I love.

Rape Fantasies: Margaret Atwood

Rape Fantasies: Margaret Atwood:

Margaret Atwood, as ever, holds humor and horror tight in the same hand in Rape Fantasies. I think I read this story soon after discovering The Handmaid’s Tale. The narrator’s ‘strategies’ to disarm a rapist range from squirtable lemon juice to extremely convoluted theological claims; when I first read it, it echoed my own inability to look at the horror of sexual violence squarely. I’m still slayed by the innocuous voice of the narrator, and how that contrasts with the chill that begins to set in from the very first line…which underscores how ever-present (the fear of) rape is. But then you reach the last paragraph and you realize where she is and why she’s telling you all this. Oh my.

“My mother always said you shouldn’t dwell on unpleasant things and I generally agree with that, I mean dwelling on them doesn’t make them go away. Though not dwelling on them doesn’t make them go away either, when you come to think of it.”

"It is important to recognize that when we speak of housework we are not speaking of a job like other..."

“It is important to recognize that when we speak of housework we are not speaking of a job like other jobs, but we are speaking of the most pervasive manipulation, and the subtlest violence that capitalism has ever perpetrated against any section of the working class. True, under capitalism every worker is manipulated and exploited and his or her relation to capital is totally mystified. […] The difference with housework lies in the fact that not only has it been imposed on women, but it has been transformed into a natural attribute of our female physique and personality, an internal need, an aspiration, supposedly coming from the depth of our female character. Housework was transformed into a natural attribute, rather than being recognized as work, because it was destined to be unwaged. Capital had to convince us that it is a natural, unavoidable, and even fulfilling activity to make us accept working without a wage. In turn, the unwaged condition of housework has been the most powerful weapon in reinforcing the common assumption that housework is not work, thus preventing women from struggling against it, except in the privatized kitchen-bedroom quarrel that all society agrees to ridicule, thereby further reducing the protagonist of a struggle. We are seen as nagging bitches, not as workers in struggle. Yet, how natural it is to be a housewife is shown by the fact that it takes at least twenty years of socialization, day-to-day training, performed by an unwaged mother, to prepare a woman for this role, to convince her that children and husband are the best that she can expect from life. Even so, it hardly succeeds. No matter how well trained we are, few women do not feel cheated when the bride’s day is over and they find themselves in front of a dirty sink. Many of us still have the illusion that we marry for love. A lot of us recognize that we marry for money and security; but it is time to make it clear that while the love or money involved is very little, the work that awaits us is enormous. This is why older women always tell us, ‘Enjoy your freedom while you can, buy whatever you want now.’ But unfortunately it is almost impossible to enjoy any freedom if, from the earliest days of your life, you are trained to be docile, subservient, dependent and, most importantly, to sacrifice yourself and even to get pleasure from it. If you don’t like it, it is your problem, your failure, your guilt, and your abnormality.”

- Silvia Federici, Revolution at Point Zero  (via a-witches-brew)

"Her eyes were springs from which ecstasy drew water."

“Her eyes were springs from which ecstasy drew water.”

- Cousin K, Yasmina Khadra (trans. Alyson Waters and Donald Nicholson-Smith)