SHE Writing Competition

Winner - Under 18 category: Ananya Khatry Liberty

It begins.

It begins, with a newborn crying for her mother. “Congratulations! It’s a girl!” they announce. The faux cheeriness in their voices signals anything but. It’s more of a condemnation, really. Having a daughter, whom the world roots against since the moment of her birth. It takes everything for the mother not to crumple up in defeat, so she holds her child close and they both fall asleep, locked in a timeless embrace.

The girl grows, and she sees. She witnesses the injustices that her mother faces. The constant subordination to any man, words brushed off as irrelevant. Soon she feels it, the unfairness. It begins small; teachers overlook her in class, paying more attention to the boys. “What use is it sending a girl to school?” they snicker. Soon the inequality grows, snowballing into a nightmare. Being forced to quit school and take care of her younger brothers, she has her freedom, her life, put on the back-burner for her family. She witnesses her brothers grow; from kind young boys grasping her hand while being walked to school, to prickly men who care only for their kind. Crying herself to sleep on many nights, the girl dreams of an education, but more of a happy, loving and complete family.

The girl is hurt, but in truth, she feels more heartbroken for her mother.

How must it feel, for the child that would bawl in your absence, to end up treating you as just another household object? She wonders if this will happen with her own children in the future. A few years later, she is married off to an older man. Kept at home and silenced, cast into the role of the perfect housewife. Life is miserable, yet still, she pushes on. As she slaves each day away, she searches for peace. And she finds reprieve. She finds it in her sleep, in dreams that always slip just out of her reach.

Never in reality.

She, who dreams of a world where she will be seen as an equal.

It ends.

It ends, with another newborn girl’s first cry. This time, the doctor congratulates the mother warmly, the rest of the staff breaking out in applause at the news of the successful delivery. There isn’t a single unkind expression in the room.

As the mother cradles her baby in her arms, she makes a vow. She promises she will raise a girl who won’t just live but will thrive. A girl who will never be bound to society’s expectations and is free to chase her own dreams. After fleeing her own marriage, the mother is prepared to fight anyone who gets in her way.

And as the cycle of pain finally shatters, the mother realises something else. She won’t just raise a daughter. She will raise a warrior, a scholar, a leader. She who can.