The Pensieve

Welcome to Pensieved — a space where reflection meets reality.
I created this page to spread awareness about the everyday privileges we often overlook: clean drinking water, private toilets, access to healthcare, the safety of living in a war-free country, and more. These things may feel ordinary, but for many, they are out of reach. Through poetry, I hope to turn these simple truths into powerful stories — to educate, to feel, and maybe even to act.
Because sometimes, all it takes is a verse to see the world differently.

Only After Dark

~The Village Daughter

They say the earth is my mother,
then why must I beg her each night
for a place to hide my shame?

By day, I hold it in—
the ache, the need, the fear—
not of beasts, but of eyes
that turn dignity into dirt.

My brother laughs, free as the wind,
while I count footsteps to fields
and pray the shadows keep me unseen.

I carry no weapon,
only the weight of silence,
and a cloth to cover my face
if someone comes too near.

They say good girls are modest,
so I wait—
not to be safe,
but to stay unmarred.

A toilet?
No, I dream of less—
a door that locks,
a place to sit
without shame.

Is it too much
to ask for a roof
over my body
when nature calls?

Until then, I walk—
before dawn, after dusk—
not for freedom,
but for the privilege
to go.

Gunpowder Dreams

In Sivakasi, the firecrackers bloom
before the night even begins.
Not in the sky—
but in tiny rooms,
where fingers mix powders
like prayer.

They don’t wear masks.
They don’t wear gloves.
Only skin and hope.

A boy of twelve coughs,
his chest tighter than the thread
he ties around fuses.
His mother tells him to drink tulsi water—
but it doesn’t wash out
the chemicals in his blood.

Each blast writes smoke
across their lungs
like names no one reads aloud.

Not all fireworks light the sky—
some dim it,
hanging heavy above villages
where children stop running
because breathing hurts.

We worship the flame,
but forget who lit it.

So I write for them—
the ones coughing in silence,
whose dreams don’t explode in the sky
but fade in thick grey air.

Wear a mask,
build a window,
ask for change.

Because no festival
is worth a life.

More Than Numbers

They say science is cold,
numbers on paper,
but I’ve seen it hold
the shaking hands of mothers
asking, Why?

I’ve heard the voices,
loud and trembling,
not from ignorance,
but from pain too loud
to be silenced by data.

They do not hate science.
They fear being left behind by it.

Because grief doesn’t read journals,
and trauma doesn’t speak Latin,
and not everyone was taught
how to question a claim
without questioning their worth.

So teach with tenderness.
Speak not to win—
but to understand.

Show them how stars don’t lie,
how cells don’t take sides,
how science is not a sword
but a light.

Tell them knowledge is not owned—
it’s shared.

That Google is not a library,
and a reel is not a textbook.

Invite them in.
Let them ask, stumble, cry.

Because science, real science,
doesn’t live in a lab—
it lives in the stories
we choose to listen to,
and the truths
we choose to teach with love.