Chapter Two: Permitted to Fly
630 Words
The email came at 4:12 PM.
Anjali saw it in the corner of her screen as her meeting dragged on — another strategy session with the Toronto team, half of which she barely registered. Her heart pounded.
“Your Work Permit has been approved.”
She stared at the line for a full minute, unable to breathe. A silent scream rose in her chest — not of joy, but disbelief. This was it. The door. Open. Unlocked.
She clicked it open. Valid for two years. Employer-linked. Travel allowed. Maahi included as a dependent.
Anjali exhaled — and then inhaled panic.
Because this wasn’t freedom. Not yet.
---
That night at dinner, Raghav didn’t speak to her much. He played with Maahi, helped her with a coloring book, even fed her an extra spoon of halwa. From the outside, they looked like a happy, modern family.
From the inside, Anjali felt like a tenant.
Her mother-in-law commented, “Today’s dal was bland. I guess Google spreadsheets didn’t teach you how to cook.”
Raghav didn’t defend her. He never did.
Later, as Maahi slept curled up between her and the wall, Anjali finally called her parents in Mumbai.
Her mother answered.
“Mummy… the visa came,” Anjali whispered.
A pause. “Oh… okay. What does Raghav say?”
“He still says no. He won’t allow me to go. Even after all the work I’ve done, all the planning. It’s for Maahi too.”
Her mother lowered her voice. “Beta, I understand. But he’s her father. He has rights too. Maybe he just needs time.”
“I’ve given time,” Anjali said, barely holding her voice together. “I gave him five years. He never saw me as a person — only a role. And now he wants to control where Maahi lives, how I raise her—”
“Don’t speak like that,” her mother cut in. “We raised you to value family, Anju.”
“You also raised me to value myself.”
There was silence.
Anjali heard her father in the background: “Tell her not to rush. She’ll regret breaking the home.”
---
The next evening, Raghav found the printed visa approval on her desk. She had left it half-buried, half-hidden. A small rebellion.
When she entered the room, he was holding it.
“So. You got it.” His voice was unreadable.
Anjali said nothing.
He looked up. “You still plan to go, even after I said no?”
“I applied before you said no. I was just waiting.”
“You think you can take my daughter halfway across the world without my permission?”
“She’s my daughter too,” Anjali said, her voice quieter than she expected, but steady. “And I’m not asking permission. I’m asking you to understand.”
He laughed. “You want to break the family and call that understanding?”
“The family broke me long ago,” she whispered.
He slammed the paper onto the desk.
“You’re being selfish.”
“No,” she said, stepping closer. “I’m being a mother. One who refuses to watch her daughter grow up learning fear instead of freedom.”
That night, Anjali sat in the corner of the bed while Maahi slept beside her, hand clutching the edge of her kurta.
She opened her laptop and typed an email to the HR at the Canadian firm:
Subject: Confirming Arrival Timeline
"Thank you for the approval. I will confirm my departure date shortly. Awaiting final discussions with family."
She paused before hitting send.
There was still a war ahead.
But for the first time, she knew she had already crossed the first border — the invisible one between silence and selfhood.
- Writer
