Nidhi Sharma is a senior teacher and senior editor. She has been teaching high school students for more than a decade and a half now. Her poems are mostly on the issues of feminism and women empowerment.
Lakshmi
Part of a big family,
yes, she was only a part.
Fifth of the six sisters in want of a boy,
like her sisters, she never knew what books were;
she could never decipher the unknown shapes which
for her they were unexplored space puzzles.
Her life suddenly took a sharp turn,
painted with Colours of the rainbow.
Now she visualised alphabets and numbers in unknown shapes.
Horizons opened as her GUARDIAN ANGEL helped her fly…
Today she pays homage to that angel,
colouring many more flowers in her slum school.
She helps caterpillars grow and young butterflies flutter in her garden.
Survival Olympics
Her hands had boils.
Helplessly she looked at them
and continued.
She had audience
filled with pity,
some with sympathy.
She continued her gymnastics barefoot,
On burning bowels of earth;
In scorching heat – a June day!
Hunger and thirst were taking over,
but she had to go on.
The light turned green, bringing her ordeal to a pause.
As a school bus struggled to pass by,
a little boy gave her his water bottle and tiffin.
Anxious, but, She took it,
half-embarrassed, half-thankful.
Her wait for green light to turn red began, yet again…