Denied her was the permission,
To give birth by caesarean section,
Least she gave birth to another girl,
Conceive she must again,
Spasm of labour pain,
She gripped the side rails of the hospital bed,
The lips of her mother-in-law moved in prayers,
With furrowed brows, her husband paced,
A male child would come, they were certain,
She stroked the hair of her first-born girl,
As she silently wiped the sweat mixed with tears,
Despair, a glint of Despair,
I heard in her Muffled Cry.

The alarm shrieked, her eyes opened,
For the past three years, robotic she had become,
Clean, cook, pack, drop her girls to the school,
A single mother of three, she jostled with time,
In her mid-thirties with a career to boost,
Against all odds, she refused to get a divorce,
She wanted to keep the doors open,
For he might come back to her once more,
As she tucked the youngest in,
She prayed to the heavens above,
As she silently wiped her tears,
Yearning, a glint of yearning,
I heard in her Muffled Cry.

A protective circle of two tiny little hands,
Embraced her as she sat cold on the kitchen floor,
Numb from the blows that came from nowhere,
The little one cried for not one, but both
For no words nor tears came from the mother,
With the father still flinging words of fire,
Split lips and a bleeding nose, she carried
And soothed to sleep the little one to bed,
In the darkness, she picked up a blade,
But, she heard the soft breaths of her daughter,
As she removed the blade from her wrist,
Strength, a glint of strength,
I heard in her Muffled Cry.

Forlorn she sat on the bloodied bed,
Pain she felt, but nothing mattered,
A second miscarriage she had suffered,
Alone in the house, she shuddered,
What am I to do??? What am I say???
In the darkness of the night, a dog bark answered,
Two years, two long years of fertility treatment,
Hormonal injections, mood swings and body change,
The need to hold someone’s hand for assurance,
She called her husband for the 12th time unanswered,
As she silently wiped her tears,
Despair, a glint of despair,
I heard in her Muffled Cry.

Help she would need,
To sit by the window,
Eyesight blurred,
Hearing gone,
Staring oblivious,
Her favourite child out of eight, her last-born son,
Imagined him walking in to embrace her,
As the light gave way to darkness,
Ninety-eight years of her memories,
Played and replayed,
As she silently wiped the tears,
Hope, a glint of Hope,
I heard in her Muffled Cry.

.    .    .

Note: This poem tells 5 stories in 13 lines each written in the backdrop of the unspoken pressure on women for a male child. These are based on real-life incidents with slight changes here and there. The poet feels the need for the society to stop seeing the picture through rose-tainted glasses and accept the fact that no matter how much we preach and propagate gender equality, inequality is displayed. The unspoken demand for a male child has existed and exists in every community. The Poet is based in the capital of Sikkim, Gangtok in North East India.