Oborodh Awake!

The keepers of law

The keepers of borders

What borders?

Between nations

What law?

Between stations

Army men, Policemen —

Men who will protect women

Violate, watch and rape

A twenty-one-year-old 

A seventeen-year-old

A fifteen-year-old and more… 

Who do we trust?

Who will protect the society from lust?

Dust unto dust

Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, 

Sans justice, sans ethics, sans morals

Products of Oborodh?

What will Chitragupta write in the final analysis?

In this life, when will we learn to fight?

To Protect what is right?

When will justice become unblind,

Dance the Tandava 

Till evil is reduced to rubble?

When will the Oborodh-basini Rokeya-like rise?

Mitali Chakravarty's poetry has been published online and as part of anthologies. Some of her poetry has recently been translated into German and read in a PEN International symposium.