History and HER plight

 

Browsing through the pages of history,

it seemed like we had finally arrived.

But, every single day from the slumber

of the patriarchal warp, a disaster is espied.

Through the centuries, everything

against women connived. 

From feticide to infanticide, to 

‘on a whim being just cast aside’.

At every step she had to make

her presence felt or

prove her might and was

always victim of remarks, often snide.

She tried to fly, she tried to soar,

across the firmament or the

vast blue sea-shore; she managed too,

only to be told: 

“you are not good enough, you know!”

She struggled, she persevered,

she trounced another score.

She made a niche, a place in History

but there’s rarely an encore.

Sometimes she merged into

the background accepting her plight.

The tide turned and from 

victim to perpetrator with 

complete ease, 

some amongst her creed did slide.

They looked down upon the

one who had some spunk,

for standing up to the motley,

though growing numbers of

unruly neo-fundamentalist punks.

She faded for years without a sigh, 

whilst some ‘she brigades’ became one 

with the He-dious (hideous) 

male dominated strides.

Yet every now and then a ray of 

hope emerges from the darkest, clouded skies,

pushing through, breaking glass ceilings

and eons of repressive

measures, to which she complied.

In our land she’s even deified,

but after the festivities and

invoking her power, not wrath

with solemnity she too is set aside.

All returns to normal, with her 

falling prey again to 

another wolf in a sheep’s hide.

 © Copyright Suverchala Kashyap