For the women named defiance

Pyaari Ruqsana,
You are going to remember these nights.
When you grow up,
you are going to tell the story of the winter
you did not go home for so long
that you had started to forget the colour
of the walls of the two-room apartment
Where you lived with your Ammi and Abbu,
and you will tell it so often, and so earnestly
that everyone who listens
will know how it feels to be born in broken country.
You will tell people that during the coldest winter
that Dilli had seen in decades,
you learnt the definition of warmth.

Ruqsana,
You will tell them that despite spending the nights
on the streets, sitting on the red and green carpets
rented from the tent-wallah,
you never went hungry.
You had just turned nine that winter.
The women sitting around you,
they exchanged smiles,
they exchanged words,
“Tabiyat kaisi hai tumhari? Kuchh Khaya?”
These women, who were portraits of concern.
were also portraits of defiance.
“We won’t move an inch from here,”
Said the women of Shaheen Bagh,
who will be written about in history,
for their resolve.
And you, Ruqsana, are a woman of Shaheen Bagh,
and will always be.

– D