My First Poem

This happened when I was a very little girl. I may have 6 or 7 years old then. I remember that it was a rainy day and I was looking out of the door. I was watching the rains falling on a red rose. My eyes were fixed to that flower. I felt that the rose was in deep pain as it was bending so low with the weight of the raindrops on it. I felt the rose would feel the pain. I had earlier seen that a kind of fluid came out when I used to pluck roses. For me it was the blood of the rose plant. I thought I was very cruel to hurt the plant.

This thought kept coming to my mind. I sat near the door and wrote a little poem with my limited vocabulary. It was a little poem on the pain of the plant and flower. I very happily showed the poem my Mum. She read it and laughed and so did my brothers and an uncle of mine. They teased me so much that I went to the toilet and cried. (My ego couldn’t let me cry in front of them.) They kept teasing me over the years and still do tease me when the topic of authors or poets come up.

I cannot tell you the extent of my humiliation I went through. I wanted to run and bury my head in the sand and die there. I did not want to face any of the people who read the poem. I thought I had written something bad. I decided never to write again. At times thoughts came to my mind and I did put it in writing but I made sure that no one read it. I used to write it in my personal diaries which were always under lock and key.

I always think that it was very wrong on my mother’s part to laugh at that little poem of mine. Did she ever think of the trauma that I went through???? Did I ever have the talent to write or was it nipped off at the very bud stage itself???? I don’t know…..

Till date I have never given the link of my blog to any of my siblings or to my family or to any person who knows me personally. That hurt that was inflicted on me hasn’t healed so far. Every time I think of it tears well up in my eyes. There are certain things in one’s life which can never be forgotten how ever hard you try to forget. The humiliation and hurt that I got from my first poem will remain in my mind as long as I live.