(A Modern Draupadi Speaks)


I go by many names —
Draupadi then.
Ananya, Zoya, Meena now.
Or sometimes just, “a girl.”
The one on the screen.
The one they spoke of in whispers.
The one who should’ve stayed quiet,
or stayed home,
or stayed gone.

---

They say —
Look, how late she comes home.
Look, what she’s wearing.
Look how she talks...
Walks...
Laughs too loudly.
Speaks too clearly.
Lives too freely.
And somehow,
it is always her fault
for being seen
at all.

---

Draupadi was traded once —
in a game,
while kings sat still,
watched,
and chose not to speak.
Now, Draupadis are traded every day —
in boardrooms,
in backrooms,
in promises that sound like love,
in silences that sound like safety.

---

They don’t call me Draupadi now.
I walk into courtrooms,
not palaces.
No royal sabha,
just white lights, wooden chairs,
and cold stares.

No one rolls dice anymore.
Now, they roll footage.
Loop my silence on screens.
Zoom into my tears.
Rewind my pain
for ratings.

And still,
no one asks me what I felt.

---

They call me victim,
but not of my own making.
They call me brave,
but only when I remain silent,
when I am invisible
and unspoken.
They don't know that courage,
true courage,
is standing in the storm
and not asking for shelter.

--

They say they respect women.
And they do —
just not enough to believe them.

And when I speak,
they say,
“Why so angry?”

Because I am.
Because I have to beg for justice
with every breath.
Because I still carry my dignity
in a purse zipped tight
in case it’s questioned again.

---

I am not here for pity.
Not here to be saved.
I do not need rescue.
What I need is to be seen.
What I need is not salvation,
but for the world to stop
turning my dignity into a prize,
a coin,
a wager in someone else’s game.

I am not asking for rescue.
Not for cloth from the sky.
Not for gods to intervene.

I want
a place
where no woman needs to prove
she did not deserve
to be destroyed.

---

I was never your sacrifice.
I was never your symbol.
I was never your choice
to make.

And when I speak —
hear me.
Not as a story to tell,
but as a woman to listen.
A woman who was
and is
and always will be.

I am not a myth.
I am the truth
that stands in front of you.
And I am still here.
Because I am not a myth.


©️ Susanta Pattnayak

Wake up, the sun is shining bright,
Chase your dreams with all your might.
New day means a brand new start,
Fill it with hope, strength, and heart.

Leave your worries, rise and try,
Spread your wings and touch the sky.
Failures teach and tears will dry,
Winners are those who never say die.

Like the salmon fighting upstream tide,
Each stroke a push, no urge to hide.
Though currents rage and hopes seem slim,
It swims with faith and silent hymn.

Every step, no matter how small,
Leads you closer, stand up tall.
Believe in you, break every wall—
Morning is the best gift of all.

Life is a road of roses and stones,
With silent sighs and cheerful tones.
Some days bless you, some may bruise,
But every path is yours to choose.

See the cactus in the desert land,
Survives with spikes, yet blooms so grand.
Though sun beats down and rain is rare,
It thrives with grace, beyond despair.

The thorns will hurt, the flowers fade,
Yet every scar and smile is made
To shape your soul, to make you wise—
A storm must come before clear skies.

When roads divide and doubts arise,
Look within, not just the skies.
Choose the path that's true, not fast,
The right way shines, and it will last.

Like monarchs flying far and wide,
They follow stars, no maps to guide.
Though fragile wings bear winds unknown,
They reach their goal, though not alone.

Breathe in peace, let worries cease,
In silence deep, the soul finds ease.
The morning breeze, so pure, so kind,
Whispers truth to heart and mind.

Be like the banyan, still and wise,
That cradles life beneath the skies.
Its roots hold strong, its shade gives rest—
A temple born from nature's chest.

Trust the light the heavens send,
Each prayer and hope, the soul shall mend.
With faith and love, walk every day—
Let kindness be your guiding ray.

Life is light when the heart wants less,
Not gold or thrones, just quietness.
A smile, a friend, a sky to see—
Such humble dreams can set you free.

Just like the sunflower’s gentle spin,
It seeks no prize, just warmth within.
It follows light with grace so true,
And shares its seeds for life anew.

When wishes bloom with selfless grace,
Even storms will slow their pace.
Goodness sown in thought and deed
Makes every soul a saint, indeed.

Susanta Pattnayak

I remember those sleepless nights,
When silence screamed beneath the lights.
No busy markets, no theatres bright—
Just fear that stayed all day and night.

I watched the clock with tear-stained eyes,
While smoke curled slow in mourning skies.
No chants, no crowd, no final prayer—
Just fire and ash and thinning air.

I saw the nurse with trembling hands,
The doctor making silent stands.
Their eyes were red, their hearts were sore,
Yet still they walked back through that door.

I saw the man near burning ground,
Where sorrow had no space or sound.
The pyres rose, one after one,
Till wood and will were both undone.

Some lay alone, no kin, no name,
No shoulder there to light the flame.
Even the fire seemed to weep,
For souls sent off with none to keep.

I heard the cries from shuttered walls,
From empty lanes and hopeless calls.
A child stared blank at screens gone dim,
And asked if Ma would come to him.

I heard the chants from distant street,
For food, for breath, for death’s defeat.
I saw the priest with mask and thread,
Whisper rites for rows of dead.

Each night I clutched my chest in dread,
And named the ones we’d lost or led.
We feared each touch, each cough, each breath—
We feared not life, we feared death’s depth.

But still, a lamp in window stayed,
A sign we’d not yet been betrayed.
And strangers stretched their hands in grace,
Though veiled by cloth, I saw each face.

We stitched the broken days with care,
With folded palms and whispered prayer.
Though sleepless nights still haunt my mind,
I know we rose, we tried, we climbed.

Yes, I remember all the pain—
The fire, the loss, the helpless rain.
But now I walk where children play—
And that alone, brings back the day.


Susanta Pattnayak

Beneath the willow’s sleepy green sigh,
we whispered dreams too soft to try,
your fingers brushed my startled skin,
a thousand blooms awoke within.

The river sang of distant seas,
your breath like petals of the sky,
I dared not meet your longing eyes,
their burning pulled my soul to shy.

Dusk wove gold through tangled hair,
a yearning sweet enough to bear,
your shadow kissed my trembling hand,
I lost my name to shifting sand.

A moth to flame, I curved, I spun,
half-afraid, half-hoping to be undone,
your silence broke like glass on air,
I drank the shards and did not care.

Moonlight poured in silver streams,
our bodies wrapped in distant dreams,
a touch, a pause, an ethereal flight,
we barely breathed against the night.

Your heartbeat throbbed against my lips,
I tasted stars on your fingertips,
lost in the hush of aching thirst,
too young to know if blessed or not.

Between the wish and whispered fall,
we built our heaven, doomed and small,
each stolen glance, a hidden sin,
a thousand stars just burned within.

Susanta Pattnayak

The moon dripped silver on the pool,
Where lotus sighed and waters cooled;
The night was silk, the air was wine,
And she — a flame in wet moonshine.

Her anklets murmured on the stone,
Each step a kiss the earth had known;
Her bare feet slid through rippling light,
Each toe a whisper, soft and white.

She came — her saree clinging thin,
Each breath unveiling folds of sin;
The silk, once proud, now begged to fall,
From aching ******* that answered all.

The breeze, a thief with trembling hands,
Tugged loose her veil's modest bands;
It slipped — then caught upon her curve,
A sigh escaped the watching stars.

Her *******, half-bared, half-shamed, half-bold,
Shifted with breaths too sweet to hold;
Their trembling crowned with dusky tips,
That pressed like prayers against her slips.

Droplets clung to her shivering skin,
Mapped secret paths from breast to chin;
A single bead hung at her throat,
A kiss unsent, a lover’s note.

Her hair, a wet and breathing tide,
Clung heavy to her gleaming side;
It framed her navel’s secret gleam,
Where all the mortals forgot their dreams.

Her glance — suggestive, but knowing well,
The endless thirst her body spelled;
Her laughter, ripe with lush delight,
Promised both mercy — and the night.

Her saree slid, a lover's tease,
Falling lower with every breeze;
A shoulder bare, a trembling hip,
A gasp half-formed upon her lip.

She turned — the water kissed her thighs,
The moon lay broken in her eyes;
Each step a moan, each breath a song,
Each sigh a place where dreams belong.

The sages prayed to stone and sky,
But none could tear away their eye;
For in her sway, in flesh, in flame,
All scriptures crumbled, wept her name.

The sage, who carved his soul in prayer,
Felt every vow dissolve in air;
His beads fell silent from his hand,
Forgotten on the trembling land.

He rose — not saint, not god, but man,
Drawn helpless to her scented span;
Each step he took through the dreamy mist,
Was one more heaven he had missed.

Her smile, half-moon, half mortal sin,
Beckoned him closer, pulled him in;
Her saree trembled against her thighs,
As rivers burned in both their eyes.

The world spun slow — the stars withdrew,
As flesh remembered what was true;
In that one touch, that final sigh,
Even salvation learned to die.

She opened arms of mist and flame,
And called him softly by no name;
No heaven higher, no bond more sweet,
Than where her skin and his breath meet.


Susanta Pattnayak

(A Song of Love, Loss, and Condemnation)

We came where the Lidder flow,
Where pine trees guard the earth below.
Pahalgam cradled us in grace,
A honeymoon wrapped in nature’s embrace.
We held each other on the mountain bend,
A love that felt like it would never end.

The air was pure, the sky so wide,
He laughed with joy, I stood by his side.
But then came thunder not from the skies—
Gunfire tore through our lives.
He fell with a whisper, his eyes still warm,
As horror bloomed where dreams were born.

Oh, although the pine still sings,
My heart can't feel a thing.
He died with his arms reaching for light,
In the meadows of Pahalgam… robbed of our right.
Twenty-six souls now sleep in snow,
Where only peace was meant to grow.
Tell me how faith became this blade—
That carves through love in a holy charade.

They came like shadows, hearts turned to stone,
No warning, no mercy, we died alone.
He wasn’t a soldier, just someone in love—
Now he lies silent beneath skies above.
Blood flows through the lush meadow’s green,
In Baisaran Valley, where peace had been.

Now the world itself breathes with grief,
And paradise weeps through every leaf.
How many must die before we say—
That no belief can justify this way?

We light our candles, the world moves on,
But love once lost is never gone.
Condemn these hands that **** and maim,
No God demands this kind of flame.
Let not one more vow be broken by hate—
Let peace rise before it’s too late.

Susanta Pattnayak

I wake beneath a sky of glass,
Where morning’s tones in pulses pass.
The walls project a forest view,
Though outside lies a city new.

My mirror greets with voice so sweet,
It scans my health from head to feet.
“Your vitals shine,” it says with grace,
While brushing teeth in zero space.

A suit wraps round with warming thread,
It shifts to black or blue or red.
Its fabric learns from mood and light—
A second skin, both soft and bright.

I step inside my transit pod,
No wheels, no roads—just paths it trod.
Magnetic lanes and silent speed,
It reads my thoughts, then takes the lead.

At work, the walls are minds, not stone,
Each desk responds to me alone.
My co-bots build with laser art,
And code appears as I just start.

We craft new worlds in quantum flow,
While time bends gently, soft and slow.
A thought can birth a flight or game,
And dreams are now a form of flame.

A break? I dine on clone-baked bread,
With fruits from labs where genes are bred.
The meal adapts to what I crave,
And cleans itself—no plate to save.

By evening, homes in towers rise,
But mine folds out beneath the skies.
Its AI paints the twilight hue,
With stars it learned I once called true.

My daughter calls from ocean’s deep,
Her submarine a school and keep.
We speak through lights and neural thread,
As sea-glass drifts above her head.

At last I rest on levit-beds,
With lullabies from bots and meds.
And dreams arrive in chosen streams,
From curated, delightful dreams.

Yet still within this world so wide,
A human spark must yet decide:
That though tech bends both time and sea,
It’s love and thought that make us be.


Susanta Pattnayak

You left our bed at morning’s sigh,
A fleeting kiss, a soft goodbye.
The stars still clung to dawn’s sky,
Now tears and time just linger by.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.  

The bangles hum your name till dawn,
The shadows sway, their light withdrawn.
My soul’s a flame, its spark long gone,
Your absence weaves my fears till morn.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.  

The sheets still hold your fading warmth,
But cold winds chant a lonesome storm.
My heart, once full, now frays, forlorn,
Each clock’s slow tick a wound reborn.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.  

No message comes, no whispered word,
No echo from that town unheard.
My wedding joy, now grief’s own bird,
This bridal bloom, once bright, now blurred.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.  

I light the lamp, I breathe your name,
The night returns with wind and flame.
Alone, I bear a wife’s soft shame,
Yet in my heart, you’re still the same.
Come back, my love, don’t leave me crying.



© Susanta Pattnayak

A few thoughts—like wild dogs—run,
Snarling, sprinting, none in unison.
One walks wrapped in quiet reckoning,
Another leaps from the shadows—unannounced.
Serious faces in the gathering of silent aches,
While jesters sneak in, stealing peace.

He walks—a slow tide at sundown,
Breeze in chest, no ripple in sight.
But beneath—magma hums lullaby,
Cradling fury like a sleeping child.
Cool eyes, volcanic veins,
A storm rehearsing in a candle’s calm.

Family—his driftwood and his anchor.
The balm and the blister.
They lull him with laughter,
Then jolt him with a sigh too long,
A silence too sharp.

And yet—
There is a place.
Not drawn on maps or etched in stone.
Where scattered thoughts find their rest.
Where the mind exhales what it held too long.
There—he folds into himself,
A silent hymn of peace.
Not even or odd.
Just still.
Just enough.
...

But the world claws back—
A phone buzz, a sigh across the hall,
The clink of plates, a missed stare,
Little things—
Each one a thread in the tapestry of turmoil.

He smiles. Sometimes wide. Sometimes just enough
To not break.
His voice—a riverbed in drought,
Holding the shape of past floods.

The night asks questions.
Why do shoulders carry what the soul can’t name?
Why does love sometimes bruise,
Even when it’s trying to heal?

Yet still—he finds it.
That sacred place.
Maybe it’s a song only he hears,
A far away place deep in nature, unknown
Or perhaps, it’s just the breath
Between two thoughts—
Where nothing aches, and nothing burns.

Here—
Even the chaos kneels.
The fire sleeps under wet earth.
And the day, whether odd or even,
Slows…
To a whisper.



Susanta Pattnayak

After a sprint for several years,
Amidst the din and bustle,
I sat one day, quiet… to think.
No phone, no plan, no subtle hustle.

The world kept spinning just the same,
But something in me asked to stay—
To watch the wind move through the trees,
To feel the weight of just one day.

I traced my steps in silent thought,
Each victory, each sleepless night.
Were all these miles I chased so far
Still burning with their promised light?

I didn’t judge, I didn’t grieve—
Just let the questions slowly land.
Had I been present as I ran?
Did I still know where I began?

There in that pause, I met myself—
Not the name or role I’d worn,
But something softer, more alive—
The part of me not built for scorn.

It whispered not of wrong or right,
But simply asked, with open grace:
Is this the path you meant to walk?
And do you know your truest place?

No thunder struck, no answer came,
Just stillness deep and strangely kind.
A quiet room, a steady breath—
The rarest peace: a quiet mind.

Somewhere beyond the ticking clocks,
A bird took flight without a sound.
The air grew light. The moment stretched.
Along the window rim, a star blinked.


Susanta Pattnayak

A journey long, through countless miles
Yet the heart, walks with smiles
Time took the glow, not the flame
Every new turn, is but a quite game.


The past leaves shadows, but none to blame,
I move through silence, to meet the divine.


Susanta Pattnayak

She dreams, no more.
The rise and the fall of the waves,
the dancing of the breeze,
the symphony of the wind,
the colors of the seasons,
the twilight, moonlit nights
all cease in smoke
under the suffocating arms of
some demonic beast
who ruptures her to dust.

She dreams no more.
Dreams have gathered dust
also a thick coat of rust.
Blurry in her mind, the day,
when she was caged
her voice was squashed
her wings were clipped
and was passed from hand to hand
for mere amusement and joy.

She dreams of
her mother, her father
in the darkness of
night, every night...
Spreading their hands from heaven
the two bright little stars
wait, twinkling for her
night after night, every night.

She dreams of
the strengths of the invincible
the powers of the inaccessible
to annihilate the brutality
and rest beside her mother
eternally till eternity.

The tree stood tall,
eyes lifted to the quiet of sky.
Its branches bore the season's pride—
a crown of leaves, dancing in light.

Among them, one—
a leaf brushed in green and gold,
clung close to its place.
The hush came softly,
a gentle breeze,
barely a whisper,
yet enough.

It loosened.

It let go.
And as the stem slipped from its hold,
the world tilted.

Fear first—sharp and quick—
of falling, of ending,
of the space between belonging
and being alone.

But the breeze curled beneath
like a secret promise,
and suddenly—
flight.
A quiet thrill, a floating wonder,
as if the sky had always been calling.

It spun, slowly, weightless,
and glanced back—
at the branch that once cradled it,
the siblings it played beside,
the early rains, the sunlit hushes,
the laughter of birds.

A pang—
not regret,
but a soft sorrow,
a love for what was!

Then came thought—
of life, of letting go,
of how even in descent
there is a reason.
Even as a fallen leaf,
it would dry, curl,
be swept, be burned,
warm someone’s night,
feed the roots of its mother tree,
become earth again.
It could be a bookmark,
a decorative piece —
reminding of beauty, of quiet change.

It understood.

And when it touched the ground,
it did not break.
It became.

Still, quiet,
yet filled with a knowing—
that even in this silence,
there was music.
Even in the end,
there was offering.
Even in the fall,
there was flight.

And above,
the tree swayed once,
not in mourning—
but in grace.

© Susanta Pattnayak