I was intrigued by Khalid's writing style, his ability to make the words come alive and inspire your imagination as you read. His writing is unpredictable, full of drama, love, hurt and survival. I can't explain how much he has inspired my own writing of poetry and short stories.
One passage that stood out for me in this book is where he vividly describes Miriam's suffrage and endurance by the words of her own mother.
" She remembered Nana's saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an
aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky
gathered into clouds, that broke into tiny pieces that silently fell on the people
below.As a reminder of people like us suffer, she said. How quietly we endure all
that falls upon us".
I lived this moment when I went to town to do shopping and I saw a woman covered in her abaya and niqabi holding her tiny baby, sitting by the entrance of the supermarket begging for money or food for the little one. Quietly she endures all that fell upon her with the baby in her hand. Not much as a cry came out.
I looked at this live painting in front of me and wondered whether life was cruel, bitter-sweet in its own concept. Or is it simply a test to see how far we are willing to go for survival. Either way, the image is still stuck in my head and presses deeply in my eyes where I can't hold my own tears back.
I sometimes reflect in my own life and wondered whether I have been tainted in such a way where I also keep my silence and quietly endure. As I back track, I surely see, that I also at some point have endured, still enduring. I don't think women in general can ever stop enduring. It is the only strength we have been given. Some of us seem to bite through it and some of us believe that even death is better than the agony it brings. This inspired me to read about the women of the world. Famous women, rich women, progressive women and most of all ordinary women. No matter of our paths no matter of our experiences, we all eventually meet at the same cross road called "woman" and somehow most of us choose the path of endurance. It isn't a sign of weakness nor a sign of submissiveness. I would treat it as sign of internal strength, perfect love and sometimes with in our own pain we discover some happiness, some kind of bliss.
There fore I was pretty much inspired to write this short poem as a symbol of strength and love for all women.
Silent she is
Whether she is as dark as night
Or as pale as day light
Her identity doesn't lie on her skin
Everything she is, she keeps it within.
For every tear that she cries
An angel quietly sits by her side
The best of comforts that she may find
Her love is like a well that never runs dry
Or her love is never thirsty, never less than life
With the weight of expectation on her shoulder
A baby, a child or a father's daughter.
With all the worries in her eyes as she gets older
A girl, a woman, a bride and later a mother
Like her body changes, her mind changes too
If you look deep inside you might discover the truth
That she also, has dreams at night, hopes in the day
That she too, has wisdom, religion and hunger to pray
That one day her silence will not go in vain
That she can get happiness that's smothered in pain
And yet you sell, trade, dispose her honor only for the world's price.
Which isn't even high, to the point she wishes to die.
Whether in a her veil, her covering you might not see her eyes.
Ask yourself if she dead or is she even alive
She might be walking, but her heart might have stopped beating
Like a dead man walking no direction of being
So one day when you see her in her fullest of bliss
Ask Who she is rather that what she is
You won't hear a cry, a sigh or a scream
That's how silent she is.
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