A Poetic Journey
When Tejashree Jadhav, A first-year Whitman College student from Pune, India, entered America’s Best College Poet Competition, she had not yet even been to the United States.
While she may have entered on a whim, the experience introduced her to a community of students and poets in Walla Walla and across the nation.
“The fact that I got this opportunity to write, perform, and surround myself with poetry is incredible” - Tejashree Jadhav
“It’s hard to feel a connection when you are so far away, but this poetry competition let me develop more connections with people and made me feel like I really am a part of this community,” Jadhav says. “It didn't feel so far away anymore.”
Bravely Taking a Stanza
Jadhav generally likes to write short poems, small musings on her thoughts and feelings. “I would only write for my own sake, because it would make me feel better.”
In the first round of the competition, hosted virtually by the Whitman Events Board, Jadhav read a longer poem that she had written about privilege. “I was worried and nervous, but when I spoke my poem, I became more and more confident.”
Why I Write
Why?
Why do I write?
And why is it so easy to write when my mind is restless?
As if the only way to calm these thoughts is to hook them,
to poetic pages of pain.
Because writing is more a chore than a hobby,
More a loss than a gain,
The loss of parts of me I can’t hold on to no longer.
So when I am at peace, rarely so, with calming thoughts,
I do not want to let even a spoonful of them out of me.
Why do I write?
Because the pages of my diary are the best listeners,
Because people may disappoint but my words cannot,
So when people leave,
Atleast I have my words to hold on to,
My words to ground me,
My words to silence the storms that rage inside me,
My words to cellotape the broken pieces of me and keep me together.
When Audre Lorde said,
“Poetry is no luxury”
It came crashing down on me like the realizations you have in the middle of the night.
Why I write,
Because there is so much inside,
It gets heavy,
Some days it gets too heavy,
I can’t,
I can’t.
I have to let out!
I have to let out these feelings of self-doubt,
Let out how this guy speaks over me in class,
And I am not sure if the things I have to say are intelligent enough.
I want to let out how sometimes upper-class Indians look at me with a gaze so scornful,
It reaches my soul and shrinks it, reminds me how I will always be less than them.
I want to let out how sometimes my accent embarasses me,
How I know three and a half languages and yet fall short of words to explain how I feel,
I feel less, kami, kam, menos,
less than the people I am asked to compete with, study with, live with.
I want to let out how I am frustrated, that I have to be back home by 7 pm,
and when I am not,
my guy friends don’t even get half the number of calls from their parents as much as I do,
How do I even blame my parents for worrying when they wake up to horrible things done to young girls every day?
How do I blame them for I know myself, that when the sun starts setting, my heart starts racing, all male eyes in the distance become scary
and I tell my friends,
‘I have to go home’.
I want to let out.
My mind is always in the state of a never ending poem,
I just break it into pieces so it becomes bearable,
I put it on pages, because deep down I yearn to be heard,
But people don’t listen,
People won’t listen until you put everything in decorated words.
So I decorate the pain of my words with the beauty of poetry,
I write because, somebody long ago once told me—that I should not.
By Tejashree Jadhav
She placed second in the Whitman competition. At the time, it was thought that
only the first-place poet moved on to the semifinals to compete against poets from other colleges.
“I was very happy and very sad at the same time. I was happy with placing second, but the fact that I was not going ahead in the competition affected me a lot,” says Jadhav. Weeks later, late in the evening, Jadhav received an email notifying her that there had been a misunderstanding and that the top three from Whitman would move on to the semifinals. “I was so happy! I thought 'This is my chance to go ahead in this competition!’”
Before the next round of the competition, Jadhav knew she’d have more time to prepare her poetry and performances.
A Budding Craft and Passion
Since she was a young girl, Jadhav has dabbled in poetry. One of her early poems for school was about a well-respected 17th century king from her home state of Maharashtra.
Aai
Once upon a time there was a village girl,
She was a rebel, the one who didn't settle for less,
The one who nobody could ever mess with.
The girl, had the strength of mountains,
She excelled in school,
Won hearts and minds of people around her.
But when she came back home, reality hit differently,
She was poor.
And in her one room mud house,
the one which had holes in the ceiling and rain sipped into their glasses of water,
more often than not they didn't know where their next meal would come from,
or if it even would.
When she was 16,
Her family arranged her marriage,
her sister already married off at 14.
The girl left her beloved village,
Even before her 10th grade scores came in,
She dropped out of school.
Moved to the city with her husband.
And however disturbing the turn of events,
They proved lucky for me.
For 9 years later, this girl became my mother.
My Aai, as I call her,
My Aai is the storm that has stood strong through thick and thin,
And sometimes I can't imagine how her life to date has been,
She gave birth to 4 annoying children,
I, the third, her favourite.
My Aai, asks me 5 times in a day if I've eaten,
Thinks that food could fix my mental health ups and downs,
My Aai has a pet crow she feeds biscuits to,
every morning, 10 am, the crow is on the tree outside our window,
My Aai is the person I can never be,
The care of oceans,
The warmth of bonfires.
If I were my Aai right now,
I would have been married at 16,
At 18 had a baby in my hands,
And another one expecting, the way Aai did,
The way Aai was made to.
My Aai, has lived the life nobody would particularly want to.
And with her 4th child, my brother,
She stood in the face of Yamdev, the god of death,
But came back cause she had a lot to teach us about the ways of this world.
The woman that my Aai is I can never be,
But the woman that she has made me honours the battles of my Aai,
The battles she never talks about upfront but as though they were tiny tales of childhood.
But we know, we know,
My Aai, raised her three daughters to thrive in a world that didn't treat her right,
My Aai is the wonder woman, the fighter, I can never be,
but the woman she has made me to be will always admire what she is,
She is a sacrifice, a legend, a feminist, a mother, my mother.
By Tejashree Jadhav
“My poetry has changed a lot since then,” Jadhav says. In middle school, after writing a poem, Jadhav would perform it at her school for her classmates and friends. Her poems, written in Hindi, English and Marathi, three of the many languages in her region, are performed differently. The language in which she writes influences her expression and performance of the poem.
It was in high school that Jadhav began to use her writing as an emotional outlet.
“Poetry became a way to feel, to cope with a lot of things, to cope with anxiety and stress at times. I think poetry was the form that kept me sane.”
Jadhav is thankful for her ability to express her emotions, and share observations and life experiences, in written word. “Writing poetry allows me to put anything that I can't keep in my head on pages, and I think that’s why most of my high school poetry was a way out. Now, the poems I write are more about my identity, and the problems and influences that shape me and influence my world.”
The story of my life
Begins before I saw the light of the day on,
December 4 2001, Tuesday.
It begins before I was even conceived,
When they were planning me,
And wanted me to have a penis,
To their disappointment, I did not.
The story of my life begins when my mother
Had to fight to not get me aborted,
Because who would want a consecutive third daughter
born in the family when sons rule the world anyways,
To their disappointment, I am alive today.
My Aai, breathed life into me 18 years ago,
And I cherish it,
Every single day of the life I have won,
Won, because far too many of India’s daughters haven’t made it this far,
Killed, before either tiny eyes could see the unequal colors of the world,
Killed, before they could breathe the unjust air of my country,
Escaped, little birds.
Female foeticide is not history.
You see,
Vaginas are goddesses,
Vaginas are meant to be respected, meant to be protected,
Vaginas bear the weight of this world,
Yet one cannot give birth to another,
For who wants daughters anyway?
‘Burden’,
as we are so rightly called on families which will take pride in their sons, but not in their daughters.
The story of my life though is one of pride and growth,
And I am glad it even took shape of a story,
For far too many stories were never allowed to be written,
never spoken,
some never began.
The fact that I can speak on a stage,
Is not a miracle, no luck, but neither is this a self-advertising rant,
I’ve come too far from where I started,
I’ve come too far from a mal-functioning school 10 mins away from my house,
to a liberal arts college 13.5 hours away from home,
I’ve come too far,
And it took me 18 years.
Took me 18 years for my father to be proud of me,
For my relatives to even acknowledge that I exist,
For my mother to say, ‘Teju, you’re here because I fought for your life.’
Took me 18 years to prove that my life, as a girl, is worthwhile living,
Took me 18 years to be able to stand up here and speak my heart out and tell you my story,
And the story of this life, continues.
By Tejashree Jadhav
Jadhav’s family has been instrumental in her poetic journey, offering feedback and support. “My family always gives me encouragement, no matter what I am participating in. They say, ‘You can do this, you will do this!’ Even if I fail, it is a very positive environment they've created and I really cherish it.”
But fail she did not. Jadhav progressed through the rounds of the competition—which were judged by professional touring poets as well as audience vote—and tied for second place in the final round.
Following the excitement of the contest in late October, Jadhav yearned for the day when she’d arrive on campus. “I'm daydreaming about it all of the time, because it is a dream come true, going to Whitman.”