This article is based on factual life conditions of some women. However, some parts of it are integrated as a work of fiction to create a background of a story and bare no references to any human living or dead. The topic is otherwise based on a serious issue, so kindly read at your free will. All the comments and views are accepted.
Him: Hey hi, how are you? Are you feeling okay now?
Me: Yes, I am fine and feeling much better. Thanks though!
Him: So would like to have a coffee and your favorite croissant?
Me: (Delightedly) yes, of course. But, what would you prefer?
Him: Just a regular Panini, nothing else.
Me: Okay, I’ll order it then.
Him: Sure.
(The waiter arrives and takes the order).
Me: Hey, what’s the matter? You look gray and dull. Looks like you are intensely involved into something. Do you want to talk it through, like me?
Him: Well, I am really not sure of how could I start. Hey, can we take a walk and ask the waiter to bring the order after half an hour?
Me: Alright let’s do that then.
Him: Thanks. (We began walking towards the quieter patch on the backside of S.G. Road, he began as he looked at my grave expression). You know what? I am kind of twitched between the right and wrong, the do’s and don’ts. Things always are darker than what I generally presume them to be. I am optimistic but situations kill optimism at times.
Me: (Looking into his eyes and trying to judge what they held). What do you mean? Has someone betrayed you or hurt you?
Him: It isn’t anything that’s wrong with me in particular. It’s the people that are nearby me or intend to be nearby me. I overtly ignore the ones I don’t like and just live with the ones I like, as they are and as I am. I expect nothing. But I am usually expected to turn the wheel around, regardless of my wishes and wills. I laugh, but I am sad about it. I cannot control my own life at times and I am looked upon to control someone else’s life, which is worst condition for me.
Me: You are upset with people and the world around you right?
Him: (Pause) Yes.
Me: I kind of figured that one out. You know what? You love people knowingly or unknowingly so much that you at times fail to understand your own emotions.
Him: I know, you are right once again. Okay, do you remember my friend Priya Thakur?
Me: Ummm...maybe, I faintly remember of hearing her name from you but not something significant. So what’s with her? Tell me anyway.
Him: Alright, let me begin with her background first. You might otherwise not understand what I am talking about.
Priya was basically my school friend, we used sit in the same row of benches. She in the girls column and I in the boys column. We usually exchanged notes after physics and chemistry lectures. She wasn’t much good at them, so I often helped her. She used to give me biology notes, as I hated that subject. She often used to come down to my house or else I went to hers. Her parents were pretty decent people and hadn’t had any objections of me lingering around her house. Now, one fine day say few months before the final board exams she disappeared. She really did!
I thought she must be absent and ignored her absence for few days. But somehow, I wasn’t much convinced and one day I dropped by her house after school. She was sobbing by the window, I ran to her and asked her of what had happened. Her parents had passed away in a car accident whilst traveling to Jodhpur. I asked her what were her plans then and if she needed any help from me or my family. She swiftly denied, saying her uncle would take care of everything and would allow her to study further, but she had to move to Jodhpur with his family. She said she doesn’t want to go but has to. Life had no options for her lest than that, as she said. We both sobbed that evening. She for her family's loss and, I for her loss in my life. We bid goodbye and exchanged numbers.
Me: Hell, this is tragic. I can imagine her and your situation. You are brave!
Him: Yes, I know I am brave. Anyways, I didn’t hear from her until the second year of my college. She then suddenly on one fine day had called up at my house and had passed her number to my mother. I immediately called her. There were usual silences which broke out with her cry. I asked her what had happened. She said her aunt and uncle never allowed her to study in Jodhpur and she was working and taking care of their children like a maid. She had been living that hell since past two years.
I was shaken once again. I told her to get out of that place and move back to Ahmedabad. She said she had no money. I asked her to check if her parents had left anything for her. She said there was lot of money but her aunt and uncle took it all. I advised her to leave that place and offered her to book tickets from Ahmedabad on a special request; to let her board without ticket on merely my father’s name. She agreed to flee. She did flee and came back in the city. I was much happy to see her. However, she was much frail and dark due to the laborious household chores for two years. Her eyes talked about nothing but misery and sadness. I took her around the city, offered her a stay at my house and promised her to get a new house and put her back to studies. She agreed to it. I also got her into temporary sales girl job. I did it all. I was a fool or not I am not sure. I tried taking care of her as much as I could. Suddenly after a year or so she left the house, job and school without a word with me.
Me: Oh my God, You did that? Is she still in some lost world? Or you found her once again?
Him: Sadly, I did.
Me: You did? What did you talk to her? Did you trash her?
Him: Before I could say a word, she was sobbing on the phone. I was dazzled to hear her voice after five long years.
Me: FIVE LONG YEARS? Hell, no way did she even remember you till so long?
Him: Yes she remembered everything clearly including our school times.
Me: WOOOOW! Where is she?
Him: I know, wow! She is in Baroda. She is living in a huge mansion like house. I went there.
Me: YOU WENT THERE? Who gave her that? Is it a property of her family? Did her uncle and aunty turn to saints from evils?
Him: Haha. It’s something I had expected. But it wasn’t true.
Me: Then?
Him: She fled with a married man who was roughly 8-9 years elder to her and had two children. He was the owner of the store that she had worked for.
Me: Holy Christ. That is insane.
Him: Yes, I know it is insane. I almost shouted at her on top of my voice. She has been living there for five years of now. I saw the man too in one of the shops that he owned in Baroda.
Me: You should have called for police then. It is an abuse to a woman’s right.
Him: I thought so too, but she was too scared to do that. He had made her finish her college in Baroda, brought a house for her in there, and also had got a decent earning job for her. Usually on his short visits to baroda he lives in that house with her for couple of hours, gets what he wants and beats her up if she refuses to go against him. SHE IS LIVING A LIFE OF A MISTRESS NOW. He blackmails her; saying if she even plans to escape he will hand over her videos to the pornographers.
Me: ummm…errrmmm….grrrrr…I have no words. I am angry now, on her and that man as well. I feel like shooting him publically.I feel like assassinating him for spoiling a child’s life and two women’s life. What do you want to do now?
Him: Listen, I can’t go and pick a fight with a man unless she has the courage to leave the life of that brothel and I honestly feel too meager in front of LIFE now. The issue that has summed her life has almost swallowed me up inside. I neither can pity her nor can I be by her side. What should I be doing? I know I can help her escape, I can help her to contact NGO’s, I can help her live in my house for a while, I can provide a job and financial support to her. But, it is ultimately her call. She has to decide. Gosh, I neither can control my life or someone else’s life? Why are things so unfair?
Me: I understand and totally support you. But then what’s going in your mind as a solution to it?
Him: Nothing, I became a coward and asked her to call me only when she decides to ultimately escape that brothel. I ask you Miss Palak what would you do, if you were to decide the right and wrong?
Me: I…I…I…I don’t know (crying)
P.S. People does anyone of us have an answer to this? I don’t have. I came across this story and felt like putting it on my blog. How many of us can act for women suffering such silent assaults? Again, I don’t know. Please share your views friends.
