Written piece
Where the Mahanadi Meets the Sea
Chandana Das
India
About this piece
Rooted in Odisha’s cultural traditions, this poem weaves together memory, culture, and belonging, celebrating how local roots become part of the shared fabric of the Commonwealth. This poem traces a journey of identity and hope.
Where the Mahanadi Meets the Sea
Like the Mahanadi,
I started my journey as a small stream,
Flowing through Sal forests
And paddy fields in the monsoon,
Carrying the songs of my childhood
Across the red soil of Odisha.
I remember
The swing tied to the banyan tree during Raja Parba,
The white jhoti drew by my mother,
The scent of pakhala on summer mornings,
The laughter of cousins racing through village lanes,
And the stories by my grandmother in the dark nights.
These are the first patches
Of the quilt I carry within me.
When childhood blossomed into youth,
I carried my mother's hopes
She prayed that I would grow strong,
That I would cross every bend in life
With courage and grace.
I left behind
The games of hide-and-seek,
The innocent wonder
Of watching the first rains
Sweep across the fields.
I left behind
The mud courtyard of my home,
The narrow village lanes,
The mango orchards of summer,
And my mother's voice
Calling me back before darkness fell.
I left my village not all at once,
But little by little.
I became a river in full flow—
Supporting homes,
Strengthening communities,
And holding together the world,
That often forgot to see my labor.
Like countless women
Across Odisha,
I stitched lives together
With threads invisible to the eye
Yet strong enough to hold generations.
A dream folded away.
A familiar path forgotten.
A childhood game left unfinished.
Like a river gathering tributaries,
I gathered responsibilities,
Expectations,
And hopes that were not mine alone.
My mother's hands carried dreams for me,
Just as her mother's hands
Carried dreams for her.
Like the weavers of Sambalpur,
They worked patiently,
Thread by thread,
Believing that one day
Their daughters would wear a brighter future.
Their faith became another patch
In my quilt.
As I grew,
I learned the quiet labor of women.
Rising before sunrise,
Drawing water,
Drying rice in winter sunlight,
Preparing meals,
Mending torn uniforms,
Holding families together
With invisible threads of care.
Nourishing fields,
Carrying burdens,
Creating pathways for others,
Even when my own dreams waited on the shore.
There were moments
When I wondered
Whether I had lost myself
In the act of giving.
Whether my name,
My ambitions,
My own voice
Had dissolved somewhere
Along the winding course of life.
Whether the girl swing
in the Raja Parba
Still lived within me!
Then came the storms.
Life arrived with winds I could not control.
Roofs were torn away.
Plans were scattered.
Yet I watched women rise again.
Gathering broken pieces,
Saving seeds for the next season,
Lighting lamps in darkened homes,
Rebuilding not only walls
But hope itself.
From them I learned
That strength is not the absence of loss.
Strength is beginning again.
That lesson became another patch
In my quilt.
And still I flowed onward.
Every place left a thread.
Every encounter left a colour.
Until one day,
Like the Mahanadi meeting the sea,
I stood at the edge of a wider world.
She carries every story
Gathered along her journey.
They say a river loses its identity
When it joins the sea.
But they were wrong.
The river carries everything with her—
The forests she crossed,
The villages that named her,
The songs of children,
The prayers of mothers,
The resilience of women,
The dreams of daughters.
Nothing is lost.
It becomes part of something larger.
And across oceans,
Other women carry rivers within them too—
From Caribbean shores,
To African savannahs,
To Pacific islands,
To distant cities and rural communities.
Different waters.
Different journeys.
Yet we stitch our stories together,
One thread at a time.
Today I add my own patch.
A patch of Mahanadi blue,
Of Sambalpuri threads,
Of Raja Parba swings,
Of cyclones survived,
Of dreams carried forward.
I am a daughter and a dreamer,
Rooted in the soil of Odisha,
Yet connected to a wider world.
Like the Mahanadi,
I do not disappear when I reach the sea.
I expand.
Because I am a woman.
And my journey is not an erasure.
It is a becoming.