People Of Bihar

By Vaishavi Ashokkumar Oza

My friend once spoke in a tongue woven with the rivers of home—

soft as the fields that swayed in the wind, 

strong as the hands that tilled the loam.

But her mother hushed it, sealed it away, 

folded between old, yellowed pages, 

tucked into the corners of quiet nights, 

buried beneath years of struggle and wages.

"Learn English," she told her child.

"Speak it clean, speak it proud.

Let it sit crisp on your tongue,

so the world won't flinch when you open your mouth, 

so your words don't bring a crowd."

For the streets had laughed at the way her voice rose and fell — 

mocked the stretch of her vowels, 

the rhythm of her voice,

the way her consonants fell like unpolished stones. the way her birthright language clung to her breath, As if her roots were something to be erased.

They spat her words back at her,

 twisted them into something ugly, 

made her mother tongue a wound, 

made her feel like silence was safer.

So she swallowed her mother's voice, 

pressed it deep into her chest, 

let her homeland slip through her hands 

until even her own name felt foreign on her lips.

Yet in the quiet, when the world sleeps, 

when English fades into the air, 

her daughter hums a tune unknown—

 a language she never learned there.

For language is a river deep; 

no border can stop its flow.

No matter how much silence is forced upon it, 

it lingers, whispering in the dark.

But one day, her daughter will return— 

not as a stranger, not ashamed,

 but speaking the words once left behind,

 carving them back into the world,

 proud to call them by their name: Bihari.

One day, the world will hear Bihar speak —

not in hushed voices, not in whispers, 

but in fire, in thunder, in soil-rich tones 

that no power can silence, no shame can erase.

It will rise. It will remain.

Undaunted, unbowed, a force too fierce to silence .

By Vaishavi Ashokkumar Oza