Eunice de Souza, born in 1940 in Pune, is acknowledged as one of the best Indian poets writing in English. Apart from writing extensively on contemporary Indian culture and literature, she has also written books for children. Her collections are as Fix (1979), Women in Dutch Painting (1988), Ways of Belonging (1980) and Selection and New Poems (1994).

Advice to Women

Keep cats
if you want to learn to cope with
the otherness of lovers.
Otherness is not always neglect —
Cats return to their litter trays
when they need to.
Don’t cuss out of the window
at their enemies.
That stare of perpetual surprise
in those great green eyes
Will teach you
to die alone.

He speaks

Well, now tell me
what would you do to a
woman who wrote to you
saying: You haven’t written
for three weeks. You’re the
meanest man alive. Not even
an exclamation mark at the end
and she sends telegrams and
express letters saying it was
a joke, love, it was a joke.

I did what any self-respecting
man would. I ignored her for
a week. Her pleadings wore
me down. She was an affectionate
creature and tried hard, poor dear,
but never quite made the grade.

She would walk too close to me
and then protest naively: How
should lovers walk? Show me:
Ridiculous, too, her unseemly
mirth when I said confidentially:
I have such an hynotic effect
on women. Everywhere I go
they fall into my arms.

Jamie Bond ! She cried
My man is India’s answer to
Jamie Bond !
After that pathological display
I decided there was only one
thing to do: fix her.

The next time we were making love
I said quite casually:
I hope you realise I do this
with other women.