Sati I Still Burn
I was once the pride of my father’s house,
I was the light in his eyes,
Daksha’s daughter,
a name that once meant honor,
became the reason for my death.
All I ever chose was love,
love for my Shiva,
the one untouched,
the one who is beyond any illusion,
who is the only truth,
whose silence held the universe,
whose indifference still glowed with truth.
But my father saw insult,
where I saw divinity.
He forgot,
I was not just his daughter,
I was a woman,
a soul,
a prayer.
I asked myself again and again,
Is a daughter’s love smaller than a father’s pride,
Does faith destroy a family’s name?
Is being Sati just a ritual to burn inside the fire?
Something cracked within me,
that tenderness,
that voice that once called me “my child”,
turned into echoes of shame,
and I burned inside alive.
And even now centuries later,
I see the same fire still burning,
in some village,
behind some city wall,
where a daughter is strangled or burnt down,
in the name of her father’s honor.
He doesn’t know,
I am still here,
I am Sati again,
living as Noora,
as Radha,
as Aisha,
burning once more,
without a ritual,
without a mantra,
only for the sin of loving.
The world has changed,
but the wound has not.
The names have changed,
but the crime remains.
A father’s pride,
a society’s gaze,
a daughter’s silence.
And I rise in flames again,
but this time no gods will come,
only headlines will,
and some mother will cry,
my Sati has not returned
not yet,
she is gone doused in ashes,
in the fire of the father’s honour,
She would be born yet again,
Somewhere to be set ablaze again!
©Chitra Arun
Note:- In Hindu mythology, Sati, daughter of King Daksha, dies after her husband Shiva is shamed by her father’s wounded pride. This poem carries Sati beyond myth into the present, where in India her fire still burns in women killed for honor, choice, and love. The names change, the gods fall silent, but the crime endures.
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