When the daughters speak out

Janamaithri Police organise seminar on women’s safety

Focus on women: A scene from Pennkunjungal Ini Karayilla that was staged in Kozhikode on Sunday.

When Athena stepped on to the stage clad in a white sari, she was the symbol of innocence of a girl in her early teens, taking baby steps into the world of womanhood. It took the audience a few minutes to understand that she was, in fact, trying to narrate a tale of lost innocence.

Pennkunjungal Ini Karayilla , a stage presentation of the plight of girls in the country, was presented by P. Athena, a Class 10 student of Providence Girls’ Higher Secondary School, Kozhikode, based on the works of noted poet Sugathakumari.

Athena began her performance with the poem

Pennkunju about an infant girl abandoned at an orphanage by her own mother. The plot thickened with the introduction of several female characters from Sugatha Kumari’s poems such as

Rathrimazha ,

Devadasi ,

Amma and

Sita . Through her presentation, Athena discussed the anxieties every mother has about her daughter and how society remained a mute spectator when the children were snatched away from their mothers.

The presentation was directed by P.C. Harish while Lakshmi Das gave the voice-over and recited the poems.

The presentation was made as part of Amma Ariyan, a seminar on women’s safety, organised by Janamaitri Police in Kozhikode on Sunday as part of a State-wide campaign. The seminar opened by SNDPY leader Sangeetha Vishwanathan, focused on mothers, who were urged to empower their daughters.