Mrinalini's Farewell Poem by Sumita Jetley

Once stood a house, grand and tall,
where voices danced in the lamplit hall.
Men spoke of time and fleeting days,
yet never changed their careless ways.

A girl once sat, unseen, unheard,
her thoughts a river, trapped—a word.
Books lay open, hands turned cold,
stories waiting to be told.

One night she left, with ink-stained hands,
walked away from shattered lands.
Trains rolled by, and cities grew,
her name a whisper, the past withdrew.

She wrote her name in paper's spine,
not on walls where dust entwined.
No throne, no child to call her own,
yet in her books, she carved her home.

And when the rains kiss Chandannagar's lane,
listen close—through time's refrain,
a whisper drifts through falling leaves—
'Dekho, bekaar ki baaton mein kahi beet na jaaye raina...'