Little Women

Yesterday I met a little girl at office. She is a colleague's 6 year old daughter. She was carrying a pink bunny and in the four hours she spent at office the bunny never left her hand. She's named the bunny 'Bunny'. This is what she found at a mall in south Calcutta when she was there on holiday.

Little-girl-like-little-woman
Pinked out.
She loves her pink bunny and wants a pink tablet to play
Pink games on.
Like her little-girl-like-little-woman cousin.

She doesn't know what sports are
Because they're not pink.
She likes to cycle
And she is her pink bunny's mommy.

She doesn't believe
Her pink bunny
Can grow up to be anything
Because she's a doll.

Little-girl-like-little-woman
She doesn't believe her pink bunny
Will like the sea.

Beautiful little-girl-like-little-woman
I wish for you colors
Of freedom, and power
I wish the world were not so cruel
to have caged you already into
the color politics of it's womanhood.

I wish for you to know
You and your bunny can be anything.
In your games
You can be lovers
And comrades
You can be partners in crime
You can be students and fighters
And under the sea explorers

Little-girl-like-little-woman
Little-woman-like-little-girl

I wish for you
That someday you will no longer
Be little or feel little.

Someday you will grow up
And have your own mind
Make your own decisions
And live your own life.

Girl-Like-Woman
More power to you.