We are the daughters dangling between two worlds—neither here nor there. Suspended like forgotten wind chimes in a locked attic, once adored for our laughter but now silenced by dust and tradition. We exist on the edge of nostalgia and rejection, where our childhood echoes with “nani ke ghar ki kachori” and ends with closed doors in what was supposed to be “our own home.”
Our names, once scribbled in mehendi on hands too small to carry grief, now vanish from the family tree like we were a footnote. No plaques. No portraits. No one asking “Beta, ghar kab aaogi?”—because apparently, we already left.
We are guests in our mother’s home and outsiders in our father’s. And let’s not even get into the in-laws’ house; there, we’re expected to arrive fully bloomed, selfless, and convenient.
There’s a silent betrayal stitched into our bloodline—a woman disappears quietly after her father gives away. Her surname changes. Her identity shifts. Her rituals and rights handed over like borrowed jewellery. And what do we inherit? Hollow boxes labeled “sentiment.” Maybe an old dupatta. Maybe silence.
We, the girls born to love both homes but own neither.
We, the daughters told “yeh sab toh hota hai” as if erasure is a rite of passage.
But let’s call it what it is: abandonment dressed in tradition. The house you were born in eventually deletes your existence from its blueprints. Meanwhile, your brother’s son gets your father’s name. You? You’re a whisper, carried forward only if someone remembers.
And yet—we survive.
With a stitched smile and fire beneath our ribs, we bear this hollowness like an heirloom. Not for ourselves, but for those coming after us. We let this wound ache in our marrow because we know—we know—this is the last time it will exist in silence.
Because the girls now?
They are rewriting the stories.
They are CEOs, soldiers, scientists, single mothers, and storm-makers. They are not seeking permission to belong—they’re claiming their space, planting flags where once they were not welcome. They are naming homes after themselves. They are living loudly and refusing to disappear.
And us? We were the bridge.
We were the necessary ache before the awakening.
We were not discarded. We were planted. And now, the bloom is everywhere.
So, here’s to the daughters who carried the void and still danced.
Here’s to the women who became their own symbols.
Here’s to this being the final chapter of the discarded girl child.
To the Boomers: thank you for the memories—we’ll take it from here.
From this generation onward, we breathe free. We belong. We bloom.
Disclaimer: This is written from a perspective and does not imply on everyone nor does it intend to the hurt the sentiments of anyone living or deceased. We salute the women who were brave enough to withstand the backlash for being too progressive or too distinct in their heart and mind, for have the courage to not drop their parents’ last name and for taking a stand against patriarchy. It is due to you that the women stand today where they one day aspired to be.
