SWEET SIXTEEN
Well, you can’t say
they didn’t try.
Mamas never mentioned menses.
A nun screamed: You vulgar girl
don’t say brassieres
say bracelets.
She pinned paper sleeves
onto our sleeveless dresses.
The preacher thundered:
Never go with a man alone
Never alone
and even if you’re engaged
only passionless kisses.
At sixteen, Phoebe asked me:
Can’t it happen when you’re in a dance hall
I mean, you know what,
getting preggers and all that, when
you’re dancing?
I, sixteen, assured her
you could.
WHAT I FEEL
Eunice de Souza is a modern Indo-Anglian poet of Goan Catholic descent. A
professor of English, Eunice is also a literary critic and editor of many
anthologies of prose and poems. As a poet, she is brief, yet sharp, often
ironic, even sarcastic. Many of her poems originated from her hearing
conversations in home, street, church, etc. One finds lyricism and ease lacking
in her poems to such a degree that the lovers of romantic poetry may even
dislike her. There is an urgency in her poems.
In
this poem, the oft-quoted 'Sweet Sixteen', Eunice presents the experience of a
teenager who defies every restraint in her way of living. The family, church,
and society tries to make her subdued (as usual in traditional patriarchal
India), but she is bold enough to break rules. The second stanza is quite
ironic where one Phoebe asks her whether one can get 'preggers' (pregnant) at a
dance-party, and she replies yes.
