mogra blossoms

The Turnaround

Indian society is an oxymoron, to be blamed for orthodoxy as much as to beam with pride about. Two sides to a coin.

I was waiting there, on the sofa, for Reeti to come back from school. Meanwhile praying that I wouldn't be called that night. I would do that silently, every single day. But wishing something like that also made me feel sinful because if I was lucky enough not to go, there was another woman who was smothered and tortured against her will. Sometimes my god would respond to my prayers, sometimes he would just look down upon me sitting in his throne, shedding tears and letting his daughter face the worst to be able to be strong enough. Those nights were filled with dreaded descriptions of cruelty and muffled screams.

I thought about the first time that I was forced to do it, when instead of bringing me into the kitchen for preparing tea, my mother in law grabbed my wrist and threw me onto another man, a complete stranger.

"You have an hour, no more than that!"

I was stunned. Looking at my husband who seemed unaffected, like he has done this a hundred times before. Counting currency notes and smirking from a little corner from his lips, I was trapped whether I should feel betrayed or try to save my own pride.

That night, I lay unmoved, scared and frozen. I couldn’t fight even if I wanted to. I let it all pass. There lay the body of a woman, half dead and completely used, the good person inside me had paralysed, my soul was frozen. I was numb, the endless tears dripping down my face. I couldn’t believe my husband would let me be abused by a man who hardly knew me, who bought me for a few hours, it felt beyond disrespectful to a woman like me.

The pain, it didn't hurt me, because it was the betrayal that did, the foolishness I fell into and the masks my parents believed to be true. It flipped down all the walls I carried to protect my fragile being. Neither did I scream or shout. I was waiting for it to get over, unblinking. Never did I hate my own body so much like I did that night.

I wanted to discard that body. I looked towards the left side of the bed, where my clothes lay, my eyes unmoved. Someone was really apt in saying that a man is a man's biggest danger, not apocalypse or death, but a man himself.

Many men have beaten me up, stabbed me, slapped me, abused me and forced me for drinks. All I knew was that they were made comfortable to do so. That night was finally done. I felt drawn out of my own soul, I felt empty. I was thinking about draping my sari and escaping that place however possible. That man, got dressed and asked me, "You're too quiet. You lay there like a dead fish! I'm not sleeping with you next time! Let me talk to your owners!"

I stood there, untidy and messed up. My in-laws explained to the angry customer, about how I was 'new in this business'. I realised at that moment, I was an asset to them and not a daughter-in-law. I blamed my parents to have found a family that treated me this way. Their only criteria being money because Bhattacharyas had the financial means to give me a better life.

There was no way I could contact Maa Baba. They had taken away my mobile. Maa Baba lived in the nearby town of Siligudi, close to Kolkata, but the chances of them ever coming to know about this, were rare because they stayed there, without any worries, relieved, that they got their only child married off to a reputable family. I squirm at the kind of reputation that believes in taking others’.

Talking about the men who approached me. Not all of them were jerks. Many of them did not want someone to have s*x with but needed intimacy and conversations. I wouldn’t know in the moment, who to feel sorry for.

Reeti was born in those few years of hell that was raised around her. Living secluded on the topmost floor in a small room away from her grandparents’ affection. I wondered what made them so heartless, were they also the victims of it and carried it forward to their advantage. Reeti was unplanned, the kid who changed everything. If it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t have been able to live by ourselves. Ankit loves her way too much than he ever loved anyone.

The morning hours passed in nostalgia, the kind of nostalgia that makes you wish to acquire amnesia. It was 2:00 pm; Reeti was on her way home. Her school bus dropped her off at the stop; I gathered the folds of my dupatta onto my shoulders and ran outside to fetch her heavy school bag.

Oh! That poor child, burdened under books that I never read until I was quite old enough to handle that much of academic pressure. Our times were better, without the internet, without burdens of education, lives were quite sorted out when I was a child, all play and no work would have been only possible back then. While we studied sentence construction, Reeti was learning about what makes the earth move, how the food we eat is converted into energy or what kind of cave paintings we find in Bhimbetka. It made me feel inferior to her, because I knew she was going to grow up to be a brighter woman than I am.

She came running into my arms, with those cute little pony tails swinging across her cheeks and that ever smiling face. I walked her back into our room. She told me about how she beat up one of her classmates. I was shocked; I didn't want my daughter to be a violent one like the others in the house. I blamed her genes, I totally forgot about them, I wanted to save her from the blood running in her veins, but how could I?

The mother inside me spoke up, "It's the upbringing that matters, not what she brought inside of her. The blood is impure until it gets a pure heart. She has one, so why do I care? I'll give her values that she's missing out on. That'll be enough."

I was jealous of her father because she looked like him. The man who didn't deserve a daughter like her. I told her how kindness heals people. I told her how violence makes her a cold person.

She hesitantly asked, "Like Grandma and Grandpa?"

I couldn't answer her.

Now who would explain to Reeti about the massive problems I wanted to keep her away from. I just told her the truth in one sentence.

"Fight back against Injustice only when you have the courage, opportunity and power to."

She no further asked me anything. I served her some food. I stared at her while she was having it.

She suddenly jumped up, and asked me, "Ma! Let's go to the park! Pleaaaaseeee?"

I cannot deny that look in her eyes, that little child was smart enough to know this. I smiled and agreed. As I wrapped up my work, a fear crept into my mind. What if they called me tonight? How would I take Reeti out then?'

At that moment itself, my mother in law knocked at our door, I opened it as I realised that my fears turned out to be true. She wanted me to be there in the downstairs bedroom at 8 pm. I hesitated and told her I wouldn't be able to. Her eyes lit up with anger. I thought of an excuse suitable enough to persuade her.

"I'm bleeding, I can't go tonight." I said gently, as I held onto my pallu.

I said it in a way that anyone would believe me. Although I lied. I was given a leave of a week during the times I bled. I feared the time when

I would actually bleed later that month; she wouldn't believe me. Reeti was quite happy as I was fulfilling the promise I made to her, which I wouldn't usually, due to circumstances.