THE DEMON CLOAKED IN RESPECTABILITY… Somdatta Mitra

 

This poem is written from the perspective of those women who have long been victims of torment, emotional abuse, humiliation, and oppression inflicted by husbands, sons, brothers, fathers, and uncles within the confines of their own families.

It reflects the silent anguish of countless women whose individuality has been diminished, whose voices have been silenced, and whose sacrifices have been mistaken for obligations. There are many real-life instances of women being treated as possessions rather than persons, expected to surrender their dreams, autonomy, and identity at the altar of patriarchal expectations.

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You deliver speeches in public places on humanitarian goals and virtues,

Yet within your own home you are a demon cloaked in respectability.

Your words seem as if a strong foundation to the edifice of compassion,

Yet you fail to respect the women in whose sacrifices your existence was built.

Your intolerance, expectations beyond your rights magnify your depravity,

A mind that was perhaps never nurtured in the garden of empathy;

Thus, you mistake domination for strength, 

And reverence for women as a burden to your pride.

From the very first day she stepped into your house,

Her individuality became a bird imprisoned in a gilded cage.

Her voice became a river poisoned by the stones of domination,

Her wings were folded into the confines of your expectations.

Your voice was always an edict demanding unquestioning obedience,

While hers was reduced to an echo lost within your walls.

You demanded that she surrender her identity at the altar of your ego,

Mistaking submission for love and silence for respect.

It took several years for her to truly discover who you were,

Long after she had sacrificed fragments of herself to please you.

Her aspirations faded like stars eclipsed by a merciless night,

Yet she continued to offer constellations of devotion.

In every hour she lost her real self,

Like a shoreline slowly surrendered to a relentless sea.

An oyster bearing a precious pearl ,

today lost its shine in the murky depths of your contempt.

She cannot see herself in her own mirror,

For even her reflection has become a stranger to her soul.

She is ridiculed today for her inhibitions and unwavering loyalty,

The very virtues she once wore as garlands of devotion.

For the woman she once was ,

has faded behind the veil of endless sacrifices.

Her reflection now carries the shadows of unfulfilled dreams,

And the silence of countless words left unspoken.

©®

Country : India 

Dated : 24.06.2026