For the daughters who learnt to gracefully camouflage pain.
A debut poetry collection on womanhood, eldest daughters and the expectations we inherit.
The Book Description
The Ballerina on Stilettos
The Ballerina on Stilettos is a poetry collection about eldest daughters; the girls who learned to be responsible, fiercely independent, high-achieving, dependable, and self-sacrificing long before they learned how to understand themselves. It is about the idea of “silent inheritance”: what these daughters carry for their families, the things they become good at hiding, and the exhaustion that comes from always trying to be the good daughter.
Through poems about lost childhood, traditions, unquestioned obedience, people-pleasing, ambition, anger, grief, and healing, the collection explores what happens when a woman finally begins to ask what carrying everything on her own has cost her. It is also about the complicated truth of loving her family while feeling hurt by them, and learning that she can need distance, have boundaries, and still love the people she comes from.
More than anything, Darshanika hopes these poems give eldest daughters a place to recognise their experiences, feel less alone in what they have carried, and know that they are allowed to want a life of their own.
Erasure, read in order: Eldest daughters learned to want a life of their own.
About
Darshanika Panda is an Indian poet, lawyer, socio-legal researcher and classical dancer, born in Rourkela, Odisha.
Her poems explore womanhood, patriarchy and belonging, and have appeared in publications in India and abroad.
Her debut collection, The Ballerina on Stilettos, turns to eldest daughters, family expectations and the lives women learn to claim for themselves.
Alongside her poetry, her legal and research work spans gender-based violence, the victimisation of marginalised communities, management of criminal justice institutions, mental health, sentencing patterns, as well as broader questions of law and justice reform.
Where the work sits
Three practices, one question: What do we carry and who made us carry it all silently?
Poems in literary magazines and anthologies. Select a publication to read the poem or explore the collection.
What carrying everything on her own has cost her
from the description of The Ballerina on Stilettos
Academic publications
Book chapter · 2023
This chapter examines recidivism — returning to offending — through a critical ethnographic study of women prisoners in the USA, Canada and India. Its focus is on rising rates and measures to address them.
Published in Criminology: Traditional Crime and Public Policy, Satyam Law International (2023).
Article · 2015
An article exploring the complexities of euthanasia in India through the case of Aruna Shanbaug, a Mumbai nurse who suffered severe brain injury after an assault in 1973.
Her case reached the Supreme Court in 2011, raising questions about end-of-life decisions and who can make them for someone unable to decide for themselves. Published in the Odisha Human Rights Commission Yearbook (2015).
Before you go
© 2026 Darshanika Panda