New Delhi, July 20 - Fourteen years ago, then US first lady Hillary Clinton came to India on her first official visit. Then, a student of Lady Shri Ram college, Anasuya Sengupta, had recited a self-written poem before her.

Clinton was so impressed that a chapter in her 2003 autobiography was inspired by the poem. The chapter is called 'Silence is Not Spoken Here'.

On Monday, Anasuya -- now an activist for women's rights -- again recited that poem before the thousand-strong audience at Delhi University's Convention Hall in the Old Viceregal Lodge, where Clinton came visiting as US Secretary of State.

This is the poem:

Silence

Too many women in too many countries

speak the same language of silence.

My grandmother was always silent, always aggrieved

Only her husband had the cosmic right (or so it was said)

to speak and be heard.

They say it is different now.