The stage is pitch dark. A single spotlight forms a circle. Dust rises, visible in its beam. From shadow, a woman shuffles into the light—dishevelled, her long tresses loose, restless. She turns—at times to the audience, at times to the unseen dark.
I am the woman—
The one you name
mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, cousin, wife.
Names you give me,
roles you clothe me in,
yet never once
do you ask who stands beneath.
When I am born,
I am held—
not as a being,
but as belonging.
A possession
to those who birthed me.
Then—
I am given.
Donated.
Passed, with ceremony and sanctity,
into the hands of a man.
And from him—
I shift again,
to son, to lineage, to name.
Always held.
Never held for myself.
I am told—
A possession must not desire.
Must not demand.
Must not grow into the fullness of being human.
I must attach myself
to the honour of another,
to the pride of a family
that rests upon my silence.
And so I learn—
to bend,
to serve,
to disappear into duty
until I become reason enough
for the existence of all—
and yet
none for myself.
Protection, they say.
A word so noble
for a bargain so cruel.
For what is given as shelter
is taken back
as servitude.
I pay for my safety
with obedience.
I pay for belonging
with erasure.
I am taught—
Peace must be kept.
Even if I am diminished.
Even if I am broken quietly
within the very walls that claim to protect me.
Endure, they say.
Adjust, they say.
For survival lies
in silence.
And yet—
What strange forgetting is this?
For I—
who am told to shrink,
to soften,
to vanish—
am Parashakthi herself.
Power,
named and worshipped—
yet denied when living.
So I remain—
Voiceless.
Unseen.
Unheard.
Not because I lack voice—
but because the world has trained itself
not to listen.
A girl child, they say,
is not heir—
but offering.
Prepared not for life,
but for transfer.
I learn one home,
its rhythms, its rules—
only to be placed in another
where all must be learned again,
except this:
that I must still belong
to someone else.
And the man—
raised in the echo
of unquestioned right—
believes.
Believes he is correct.
Believes he is entitled.
Believes that what is given to him
is his to shape—
or break.
So the possession is used.
Bent.
Bruised.
Abuse finds its language
in entitlement.
And the world—
with its quiet complicity—
calls it order.
And if I leave—
If I step away
from what binds and breaks—
I do not become free.
I become spectacle.
A story.
A caution.
A jest for idle tongues.
For is it not said—
better a widow
than a woman who walks away?
Respect, they say, must be earned.
But tell me—
Must I earn the right
to exist as myself?
Must I prove
that I am worthy
of dignity?
She pauses. The light holds her.
She looks at the audience—pleadingly.
Then lowers her head.
I see only blankness—
yes… as clueless
as a frightened child
amidst a quarrel
where emotions run unhinged.
A silence.
Then—
“Shakthi…
daughter of mine—
rise.”
She lifts her head. The stillness changes.
No.
No—
this I see now.
I was never a possession.
Only named so
by those who feared
what I might become
if I knew otherwise.
A breath. Not anger. Not defiance. Something steadier.
I know now
what strength means.
I am not what was given.
I am not what was taken.
I am—
that which remained
even when all else was claimed.
Itinerant Storyteller 