My will

To you, my daughter, i gift my smile
Take it with you when you build those bridges,
For it will better stand the test of time.
Use it often on the old and young,
For a smile speaks of hope,
Where words and gestures fail.

To you, my little one i give my dreams
For it is they that have carried me this far
Carry them in your sleeve,
Wear them in your heart,
Drown in them each time you come upon
Unknown terrain, unseen fears,
You’ll find them handy enough to mould
Your life the way you want it to be.

To you my parents, i leave my memories
Dwell on them, each time you cry
And listen to them sing you lullabies
With time, they’ll teach you to let go
Like you have done many a time before.


To you, the one who shares our parentage,
I entrust my hopes, for it will be up to you
To carry forward the wonders of our lives,
To remind the future of where we came from,
And where we belong.

To my friends, i wrap around you my warmth,
Lest you ever feel the empty spaces where
We laid over endless cups of coffee,
Our threadbare lives.

And to you, my love i leave nothing.
Nothing save freedom from everything
That binds you to me.

on flipkart!

my first book of poetry! on flipkart! gosh! thrilled, yes. nervous, yes. :)

'The Voices Never Stop'
Writers Workshop, Kolkata

and now, me

For how long will you remember me?
Gone as I am already from the pages
Of your newspapers
And headlines on your television

You will remember me of course,
In fleeting glimpses
When another like me is molested,
Another girl child is drowned,
A mother’s foetus ripped because
She will birth her own kind,
a bride's cries stifled,
or set afire


You will remember
When my tormentors are brought to book,
When they are hanged
Or sentenced to life

When governments swear by their children
And their mothers
To never let this happen
Only to play witness again
And again
And again.

And then again,
You will eulogise me
When you light candles in my memory
Year after year


Alas!
You will also forget
In the mundaneness of your life
In the everyday struggles you must meet
In order to survive

You will forget
When you see beauty around you
Happiness, joy and innocence
And you will then
Foolishly believe
That life is still beautiful.
And that there is still hope.

You will forget
Because it is scary to remember.


How many more of us will it take
For you to not just remember
But never forget?



numerous verses on the internet on Nirbhaya. but for how long will we remember?