Strength ...

This poem is dedicated to all women in family, friends, colleagues, fellow writers, known and unknown and beyond...

for all the women who are happy and established ...

for all those women in the nook and corner of the country, in far away rural areas; women who are still dying in the womb, denied education, abused and beaten up ...

for women who suffer under extreme social and economic conditions ...

International Women's Day is observed on the 8th of March every year. Let us take this opportunity from our hectic schedule, and reflect on what is it to be a woman, assess the progress we've made, to bring about further changes or simply to celebrate womanhood ... and of course to let all the men, fathers, husbands, lovers, brothers, sons know how thankful we are for their support and love ...

When you sent those thorns on my way,
did you want to see me crawling on my knees?
Do you now find it difficult
to see me standing tall,
loftier than my dreams,unbeaten and invincible?
The day, a thick black smoke,
coiling like snake, engulfed my soul,
you imagined me to be strangulated.
Are you now surprised that
I could tear apart the thick dark curtain
and made a slit in it,
through which the sun shines now?
When you took away my garden of Eden,
you expected me to fall, perhaps;
instead I learnt to fly,
gliding and soaring higher than hopes.
I no longer sit at the gate of your paradise
sobbing, waiting for you to open the iron clasp.
I am no more ashamed to have eaten the forbidden fruit;
I have tasted the nectar of experience and gathered wisdom;
Now I have learnt to keep the serpent beneath my will;
Is it my fault if Adam fails to resist my beauty? Yet,
I have always held his hand firm,
giving him shelter like the banyan tree;
I have won grief and sorrow and made them my armor;
I no longer shun death but have conquered it with acceptance.
Do not be surprised any more
for I still smile the brightest,
with innocence and determination,
unafraid, ready to begin,
tomorrow and afterwards!

re posted ...