Happy Women’s day

 Dear women,

We have two hands -

not eight like the goddess in the pictures we admire.

We need six to eight hours of sleep,

not a lifetime spent feeding someone else’s fire.

You do not have to perish

just so others can grow.

You are not someone’s manure in the soil -

you are the seed, the stem, the bloom, the glow.

You are a whole plant yourself:

green, alive, breathing light,

with flowers waiting to blossom

when nurtured just right.

So water yourself first.

Grow strong, grow free.

Let others grow beside you -

but begin with you, be.

Be comfortable in your own skin,

let your quiet confidence show;

Else bitterness grows in hearts

that never let themselves grow.

What we learned in school was true -

Ladka aur ladki ek samaan.

Equal in dreams, equal in voice,

equal in strength to stand.

Listen closely to the world around -

no one asks you to bend till you break,

no one asks you to stretch so far

that your health is the price you must take.

Keep your friends close,

your girlfriends closer still.

Work with joy, rest without guilt,

follow a hobby, a passion, a thrill.

Pause every day.

Breathe. Laugh. Be.

There is no secret rule book

that defines what a woman must be.

Those rules were imagined,

written in invisible ink.

So live fully, kindly, 

let all your emotions show.

More often than not,

pause to think. 

Happy Women’s Day.