Expectations

I fix my stole as I walk down the street.
I feel like every man’s eyes are on me.
I feel like there is something wrong with my clothes.
Is my salwar too high?
Can they see my unshaven calves?
My twin brothers’ legs have thicker layers than mine.
He doesn’t shave to look like a freshly plucked bird,
and yet he is fine.

I catch another man staring.
And then I understand.
My kameez is too tight
for a girl to walk alone
 in a Dhaka street at night.
I see a throng of men hollering their slogans out loud.
I sigh as I prepare to meander through the crowd.
I wear my backpack on my front as I’ve learnt through experience,
that it saves two things: my bosoms and my purse.

Just after dinner
I hear Mr. Ahmed will visit.
“Go put on a bra darling, remember you’re fifteen.”
I glance at my topless father staring at the TV screen.
Why isn’t he expected to put on a shirt first?
I marvel why they call this century the twenty first.
I think to myself as I watch the approaching sedan,
why the outline of the physique of a fully clothed girl
is more shameful
than a topless man.

Why do I always have to listen to a lecture
on the ‘intricate’ mechanism of fluffing up the pillows
while my brother gets to stand by the electrician
and watch him put the fuse back in position?
I’m the one who scores top in physics.
Double standards seem to have no limits.

Why am I expected to paint my face?
To thicken my eyelashes
and darken my lips?
My brother has more acne marks than I do,
but I don’t see mom forcing him on vegetable stew.
And why are my clothes expected to be pressed and pristine,
when it is okay for him to wear his tees and jeans?

They call me a tomboy
and accuse me of male traits,
when I don’t understand what makes these ‘masculine’ in the first place.
I guess I’ll simply have to adapt to the expectations of my culture,
to save the façade of normalcy from puncture.