The feeling of the poet are at first distress that it makes a female reader feel extremely emotional about the fact that she has the ability of writing such words in front of the world asking for freedom. The poem has five stanzas, every line of the stanza is explained below.
At the beginning of each stanza, Kishwar writes that I am not that woman, the whole purpose of this to emphasise the importance of women rights. She says ‘selling you socks and shoes’, the meaning to say this is that she is not them woman who get extremely less money for work. After writing this she says, ‘remember I am the one you hid in your walls of stone’, the words which come out of her mouth are not true but she is explaining the sentence by using metaphors, she conveys the message that she was restricted to go out, it is a jail and nobody could come out to do work or even shopping.
Kishwar says that ‘while you roamed’, the women could not step out of their houses to even meet their friends, it was like depressing inside the jail for them and the men had soft times to have a laugh, repenting was not in the men’s lives and did feel ashamed of doing such acts as beating, swearing and how cruel they were. Moving on to the next line which talks about freedom of men the poet says ‘free as the breeze, not knowing that my voice cannot be smothered by stones’, the meaning of this is that if she was to shout at someone outside to escape from the trap, it is not like this that her power of speech was controlled.
‘I am the one you crushed’, the purpose of saying this is that beating which would take place would be unbelievable, moving on, she recites that ‘with the weight of custom’, the intention of saying this is that it is like a bull dozer which will hit her if a particular job is not done, or she tries to escape the village or city. Going down the block she says ‘not knowing, light cannot be hidden in darkness’, meaning to utter this words is that she is not that individual who is trapped and cannot be seen. Then she moves on by saying ‘I am the one in whose lap you picked flowers and planted thorns and embers’, these words produce a lot of strength to say such words against men, this condemnation means forcing to take the flowers away and shoving a small piece of glowing material from a dying fire.
‘Not knowing that chain cannot smother of fragrance’, she really emphasises the fact that that the shouting out for help to get freedom cannot be impossible when a person can move out and about. ‘Whom you bought and sold’, as in the early days there used to slaves who used to be bought and sold also done by trading. ‘In the name of my own chastity, not knowing, that I can walk on water, when I am drowning’, by misusing the respect of herself and her family and opposing it to disgrace and humility. ‘I am the one who you married off to get rid of a burden’, it is like this that before a parent passes away he or she wishes their son or daughter to get married so that a certain amount of money is given to them, it mostly occurs that a marriage takes place and money is given to their children, often it is because of greed of money.
‘Not knowing, not knowing that a nation of captive minds cannot be free’, the sorrow will make women depress because it is like a screw fitted in the women’s heart, it may give them a feeling to do a suicide. ‘I am the commodity you traded in, my chastity, my motherhood and my loyalty’, by saying this all the goodness was taken and was replaced by the everlasting dirty features. ‘Now it time for me to flower free’, this is the beginning of her life, now the time begins. ‘The woman on that poster, half-naked, selling socks and shoes’, she says again in her mind, it all finished. ‘No, no, I am not that woman!’, finally she finishes off the poem in these words that once again luckily, she’s free again.
Overall, the poem has a lot of metaphors and similes which make the poem inspiring and it is like eye catching in the meaning of listening, the poem is emotive, it would affect female readers the most because they, by chance have skipped them years in which women were tortured, the poem is also very sensitive because it gives out fear to those who have not been through these times. This poem would affect most of the women and in emotional men, this poem is set out nicely and goes fluently.
