Liberty is her maiden name!

Supriya Majumdar

A prose of grace or a duet of virtues and vices?
She is not just a woman but a sublime storm,
Clad in her pride more than the silken kaftan.
Flaunting her identity without any guilt or guise,
Expressed with those kohl smeared, dark circled eyes!

Her skin glows from the fire of the furnace within
Albeit with nascent lines criss-crossing her face,
Singing songs of the thousand battles she has won.
What is wonderful about this day, you may ask her,
She will smile and whisper, “Her freedom to answer!”

Raised in a small town in a family of dozens
Full of harsh realities, with lack of resources;
A place of many with voices shrill and uncanny,
Where individual choices had but little meaning
And nobody bothered about the screams of bullying!

Firstly, the hawk-eyed neighbours spitting venomous taunts,
Irrespective of academic merit, skills or pleasant character;
One was only good enough for their incessant unholy slurs.
And then the relatives masked with reputation in the day
Who camouflaged as darkness, molesting the night away!

Her innocence looted by the sanctimonious calls,
Maturity barged in, taking over as an uninvited guest.
The time for toys was arrested by the household chores,
The warmth of parental affection replaced by helpless cries.
How desperate was she to escape from this callous devise!

Gradually, the light of the textbooks showed her the way,
Characters from the literature gave hope and validation
That opinion, volition and aspirations were her birthright
And she knew her freedom waited to unite with her adulthood,
When she could translate the silence forever misunderstood.

You ask her what it meant to finally fly away;
She will close her heavy eyes to revisit her past and say,
It is what she never had- “Her right to essay her dismay”!
Dismayed by the flawed lessons of holding back the tears
Of forgetting, forgiving and containing the devouring fears.

In her thirties today, she has graduated to being accepting.
She is not the virtuous Radha or Sita of their imaginations;
She is the ‘disobedient’ Eve who chooses to do the forbidden.
For all you know she may not be the one she tells you she is;
She could be a complete mystery- a riddle, puzzle or a quiz!

What defines her today, makes her different from yesterday?
It is the gift of independence she has bought herself;
The meek teenager given away to redeem her brazen spirit.
So condemn her demonic laughter, if you please;
She’ll shatter your judgment with nonchalance and ease.

The ones who wish for her silence are met with a typhoon
There is not much concern for the world in her anymore.
She carries her baggage alone, teasing the lustful misogyny
Do not expect her to shoulder the burden of your logic;
She doesn’t pay heeds to her own, she is happily hedonic!

This journey has been worthwhile, her story worth scribbling
Story to be passed on to the ones who desire to search her,
Inked in the pages of her diary with a sense of fulfillment
For the ones who wish to read their own characterization,
Of what they did to her, to see their own reflection!

She is free to fly and to dream, to love and to break;
Those broken pieces collected to make a tiara of her victory.
You will find her smiling and dancing in crowded streets;
Her joys are shared with the ones who were part of the game,
The game of life, where Liberty is her maiden name!