Between Sirens and Silence

Some conversations stay with you longer than they should. They follow you home, sit beside you, and quietly change the way you see everything else. This is what happened to me after a simple discussion about fairness turned into something much larger. And luckily, I stumbled upon a competition called Never Such Innocence that gave me a chance to express the same online.

As I walked home, their words would not leave me.

“We aren’t treated the same,” the girls had said.

Curfews that come earlier. Voices expected to be quieter.

They were unhappy with the burden of studying and following norms. 

At home, the television flickered. Mom and I watched aghast.

Gaza’s smoke and sirens filled the screen. 

That girl seemed to look into my eyes and say:

Living in Bengaluru, you crib? About what? 

I visualize her life - There…Dawn doesn’t bring sunlight; it brings gunfire. 

She is running. She hears a scream - loud enough to subdue the bombs, 

She does not turn back for it is a luxury only the safe can afford.

The voice in that second scream sounded familiar and involuntarily she runs back.

The ground shudders as she pulls her little brother beneath a trembling table. Her arms wrap around him as if they alone could hold the world together. Whispering promises she is too young to make,

And praying that the night will not steal another name from the ones she loves.

Girls her age in Gaza have begun to adjust to the ‘new normal’ of their life -  

Clamping their hands over their ears as they count seconds between explosions.

Reminiscing about their happy days at school playing with other girls

And rejoicing the salary days when their aunts bought them loads of gifts 

While we were arguing for fairness, she fights for survival.

While we were demanding to be heard, she begs simply to stay alive.

Yet in peaceful streets, people shrug and say, “I’m not a feminist.” They do not understand that indifference is a luxury. Built on the courage of girls who never had the choice to look away.

Learning how a childhood can vanish between one breath and the next

My shoes may pinch. But somewhere else…A girl runs barefoot through fire.

And now that I have walked beside her,

Even if it was just for a moment, I know I will never walk the same again.

I still think about that walk home. About how easily we measure our struggles without seeing the full picture. This piece is not about dismissing our voices, but about widening them, so they carry both gratitude and awareness into the world we are growing up in.