31) Nandini

31) Nandini 

From birth to four, 

She was just a child like all

Cared and fussed over, 

Maybe her cry was more shrill. 

After four, she was tied, 

From waist below, a skirt, 

Without knowing what it hid, 

She was made to feel, from then, guilt. 

At fourteen, with a new ritual, 

She was given half saree and blouse, 

And told to be shy and sensible, 

But still, scaring her, men began to notice.

At twenty, after usual cries, 

She left home with a strange man, 

Soon, felt a mother in her rise, 

After the usual pain, another girl was born. 

Nandini, she was named, 

After The divine cow and her grandmother, 

Bright eyes and free spirit she inherited; 

From mother, Who lost them, at the age of four.