Let us not forget the Shakti within one’s femininity.

Let us not forget the Shakti

Within one’s femininity

Yagnyaseni,

Of pyre and luminosity

Volcanic in sparks that lights up a city

She was born Draupadi,

Came unasked,

Left in the fated uncertainty

Having many however none

of the proudest of husbands and sons

In their splendor she never basked.

Yojanagandha,

Her presence was a waft smelled from afar,

Azure and assured

A royal lotus bloom

A fragrance that the jaundiced eyed wouldn’t dare to wrongly assume

A prize shared fairly amongst brothers

All five despite how her heart yearns for

Arjuna, in spite of his many lovers

Let us not forget the Shakti

Within one’s femininity

The ruins, that tells their own tales,

Our mothers, as they persist through silent prayers

To remind us how the slightest wrong against a flower

Dethrones a king with all his power

Dismantles towns to ash and rubble,

Witnesses a kingdom as it crumble

Like Ravana’s,

Over Sita’s abduction

Like Dusshasana’s,

After Draupadi’s humiliation

--She spun,

First with all that she could fathom,

Sarcasms that are thought of as cute instead –

As her husbands kneeled as mute as the dead.

She was a prize once won and now agiven to another, thrown onto a stranger’s lap

An object

For with her beauty and charm, was said to come her misery & harm

She spun,

A game of dice took all, and won all

Snickered as the Pandava’s fall

Whilst the Kuravas felt mighty and tall

And startled as they began to disrobe her saree,

She threw both hands in plea to He who has promised her security.

In Lord Krishna’s name she spun

She twirled like the blaze that she was made of, each layer followed by another

In Awe their eyes feasted on like no other

The mystery like wise of feminality that none can ravel as it leaves all souls baffled.

An object

To them that was all she was,

Not a boat that saved them sorrow, summoned tomorrow, and kept them afloat.

And in Dusshasana’s blood,

Draupadi swore her hair would one day be washed

Let us not forget the Shakti

Within one’s femininity  

At the sole of our feet there are seeds of many kingdoms to come, voids that wombs would have sincerely fed.

We women have been taught to please,

To have a future planted at ease,

Taught to manage,

Although he was taught to carry the burdens of a baggage

We might not be a Panchali, a Parsati, like her with the audacity we wish to embody; yet a saga of agony we hope to never endure.

But we are the earth itself

Like frogs, somehow stepping upon one another to leap,

Despite the pond of tears and muddy fears we’re able seep,

For higher apples and sunnier spots to reap

Blessed by the nature we forgot to kiss as mother,

With all the love that she has taught of to have, to spread, and smother.

In Draupadi’s name, I wish to not cower.

Happy International Women's Day.