In this poignant poem, Rajashree addresses a dear daughter’s struggle against societal constraints and the desire for empowerment, exclusively for Different Truths.

Oh, my dear daughter!
You are not born free, unlike others
But everywhere, in chains of savage preliteracy, around you
And you float in an ocean of fears
Ready to sink unwillingly
In a state of despair and melancholic blues.
 
The clutches of hellhounds,
Some are known and some are strangers
Or some of those appear behind the masks
to keep themselves unidentified,
Spring at you now and then
For a quick grapple.
 
No doubt
Society is blind to your skirmish mishaps
Like the blindfolded statue of justice
And a resultant desire for self-assassination
Pullulates in you beyond belief.
 
May the blinded eyes should be unwrapped
And filter you from pains
And to unfurl a new chapter in history
Of empowerment of a girl child
To ensure and ascertain,
That no longer, you are in chains.

Picture design by Anumita Roy

Rajashree Mohapatra

Rajashree Mohapatra, born in Odisha, has received her master’s degree in ‘History’, and ‘Journalism and Mass Communications’ from Utkal University. She is a teacher by profession. Being a postgraduate in ‘Environmental Education and Industrial Waste Management’ from Sambalpur University, she has devoted herself as a social activist to the cause of social justice, environmental issues, and human rights in remote areas through non-governmental organisations. Poetry, painting, and journalism are her passions.