@@INCLUDE-HTTPS-REDIRECT-METATAG@@ A definitition of freedom

A definitition of freedom

By Vijay Phanshikar :

All week she's cleaned

someone else's house,

stared down her own face

in the shine of copper-

bottomed pots, polished

wood, toilets she'd pull

the lid to--that look saying

Let's make a change, girl.

But Sunday mornings are hers--

church clothes starched

and hanging, a record spinning

on the console, the whole house

dancing. She raises the shades,

washes the rooms in light,

buckets of water, Octagon soap.

Cleanliness is next to godliness ...

Windows and doors flung wide,

curtains two-stepping

forward and back, neck bones

bumping in the pot, a choir

of clothes clapping on the line.

Nearer my God to Thee ...

She beats time on the rugs,

blows dust from the broom

like dandelion spores, each one

a wish for something better.

- Poem “Domestic Work” (1937) by

Natasha Trethewey,

twice American Poet Laureate,

Pulitzer Prize winner

VERY simply put! Very well put! That’s the speciality of Natasha Trethewey. Never does she write a difficult word, or a complex expression. Yet, in all her works one finds a fine, subtle usage of words that convey meanings far beyond their stated purpose. Let us not miss the simple contrast in these two expressions: All week she's cleaned someone else's house, ... But Sunday mornings are hers-- Domestic work is almost without poetry, most of us may conclude.

And when domestic work is in someone else’s house for someone else’s satisfaction, for the pay someone else offers for the service, it has all the attributes of drudgery -- despite the the shine of copper-bottomed pots, polished wood, ... in which to stare down her own face ...! That’s good work, so to say. But then, it is in someone else’s house, for someone else’s pay. And that’s drudgery. How many times do most of us think -- in half disgust, in half exasperation ‘If only I were doing this for myself!’? -- corporate executives, industrial master-technicians, artistic craftsmen ...! How many times do we exclaim how wonderful could it be were we working for our own profit -- and not just pay!

Then, for a domestic maid, things could be really, really be more full of drudgery, more full of desire not to be tiring oneself out and down. But Sunday mornings are hers-- And there is the difference -- of the sparkle on the face, twinkle in the eye, pep in the step. This is how freedom can be defined. Self-rule. Home Rule -- said Annie Besant, who became one of the foremost voices of the Indian angst for freedom from the British. But that is a big thing -- perhaps too big for a domestic maid. Yet, let us make no mistake -- that the quest for doing things for oneself -- may be on Sunday morns -- has almost the same connotation (in a personalised way), if not the actual notation.