Meena Kandasamy

1984 - / Chennai / India

Nailed

Men are afraid of any woman who makes poetry and dangerous portents. Unable to predict when, for what, and for whom she will open her mouth, unable to stitch up her lips, they silence her.

Her pet parrot developed an atrocious fetish for the flesh of sacrificial goats, so, Kulamaayi was bolted within a box and dropped in the Kaveri.

She teased and tormented his celibacy, so Miss Success-Village was thrown into a well by a wandering socialite-godman.

She was inaccessible and unattainable, so, Durga was put in an iron trunk that settled on a riverbed and even the men and women who tried to approach her were informed in a prerecorded voice that she was out of reach and network range and coverage area.

She was an outcast who had all the marks of a fiery orator who would some day run for parliament, so, a nail was driven into her head on the instructions of her brahmin fiancé and her coffin was set adrift in a wailing river.

She was black and bloodthirsty, so, even Kali found herself shut inside her shrine.

They were considerably low-risk, so most other women were locked up at home.
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