With the midnight crescent gleaming,
When shadows hovered in the dark,
He feared it was a ghost,
She feared it was a he.
They want her horizons narrow,
But her waist narrower.
They want her to be fair skinned,
But don’t want to be fair minded.
At the age of 13, she got her periods.
How could her parents normalise it for her
When TV commercials constantly showed her
That she bled blue?
Why is the adolescent ashamed when
Her white bedsheet is stained red?
Why is the bride ashamed when
Her white bedsheet isn’t stained red?
It takes years as a woman to unlearn
What you’ve been taught,
Deliberately or not, since the day
You were born.
We’re all daughters, walking together,
Fighting for a more equal world,
Because we don’t want to be the next of
India’s daughters, do we?