HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY

Here's a poem called 'Women.com' by Bengali poet and feminist Mallika Sengupta, translated by Sanjuta Dasgupta, for International Women's Day. I really like this poem. I copied it from the PIW site.

Women.com   Today, on our Computer Day Come let’s place our hand on the women.com button This very own history of women From illiteracy to women.com. Once upon a time from this woman You snatched the chance of reading the Vedas All of you said women were just housewives Men had the right to Sanskrit Women’s language, the language of the Sudras was different. After a thousand years when the girl Prepared herself for a girls’ school Bethune and Vidyasagar stood by her All of you said Women who read and write Are bound to become widows. Then when the woman entered the office space Mother-in-law’s sullen face, and the husband was suspicious All of you said What’s the use of a family run with a wife’s money? The woman had to fight the storms and tempests. Inch by inch in the thousand years the woman Has earned knowledge and power Inside a fiery heart, tranquil outwardly Today half the sky is in the woman’s palm The world is an amlaki held in the woman’s fist Just a touch of a button One day you who had denied her knowledge of alphabets             In her hand today is the computer world.