SHWETA

" I wanted my freedom, and he wanted more than his freedom, he wanted what that didn't belong to him. And one who wants more than his freedom, must be punished."

I met Shweta for the first time, in college's reading room. A girl with long hairs, and olive colour, was sitting in the corner putting his head in a book of dreary philosophy. As not a single seat was there except in her side, so I headed towards her, put my bag on the table, slide the chair back, and thrust myself between its arms. She raised her head, cast an eye on me, and again started reading. I noticed that her eyes were deep and look like an ocean has shrunk into them. Soon we introduced ourselves, and I don't know  when this introduction turned into a strong bond of friendship. We used to sit and have interesting discussion on various philosophical sects and theories. And of course she was good at it.

On the occasion of  last Eid, I heard someone beating the door, while I was sleeping in my room. When I unlocked it, I was surprised to see Shweta, standing at my door. She entered in the room , threw her backpack on my bed, and said, “ hey I heard that you are not leaving for your home this Eid, why?”

“ My family is not at home, so.”

“Ohhh”.

“Hmmm! But Shweta! You never go to your home.”

“Yes! I don't.”

“But why?”

“Precisely because I don't have a home.”

“What rubbish! How can you say that?” Laughingly I said.

“ Ohhh! Its true.”

“Then who sends money for you then?”

“There is an NGO”

“ What?... You never told me about it”

“ Because you never asked”, she said with a mysterious smile on her lips.

But it was an astounding disclosure for me. I asked her in surprise, “ how did it happen?”

She replied that she was in a shelter home, when the NGO offered him scholarship to start her schooling and then, for her graduation, and then for masters.

“But how did you end up to a shelter home?”, I asked.”

“ Because I absconded from my home”.

“But why?”

And then there was a something very painful in her obscure and dreamy eyes. She breathed heavily and started gazing at the roof. I was silent and constantly looking at her in amazement with my open eyes, fixed on her face. She remained silent for a while, and then then I saw her lips in dither. She wanted to speak up something, but she couldn't. She was shivering and her leg was trembling under her.

I gave him a glass of water and said, “ Don't you know about your family, or is it something very distressing?”

She looked at me, and said, “ Well, listen! Here is my story, I never told anyone about it.” And then what she said was just something I couldn't even imagine.

“ When I got consciousness, I found myself doing trivial household chores of the Pardhan of our village. I grew up inhaling the aroma of delicious dishes, but consuming the unpalatable things, with the addition of extra maltreatment with slaps and whacks of Pardhan and his whole family. I never knew what is compassion and what is love. All I experienced in my childhood was just oppression. I was barely twelve years old, when I was married to a thirty years widower, whose wife had died last month. He was cruel, brute, drunken and a lascivious cad. I was shipped to him like goods. Not a single person was there to ask my consent as it is a common phenomenon in any patriarchal society. The first night was something which Is can't scrub it out of mind. Whenever I remember that, the chill runs down in my spine. And what that happened first night was repeated every night. Every single night, I had to go through that pain and suffer that emotional distress. When my body used to be devastated by working from morning till evening, it was being exploited along with my soul in the night. And when I reached to the age of fifteen, I had already have two miscarriages. The wrenches which were afflicting my soul were just unbearable.

It was the fall of summer when I tried for the first time to get rid of all of this miserable life . I tried to flee from that village to the nearby city. I don't know who informed my husband, and he caught me up in the midway,  dragged me back to the home, and beat me up. On that day I had lived with death breathing right in my face…I was exhausted and just fell on my feet. He put me on bed and didn't stop that night either. It was malignant and obnoxious. The last bit of patience which I had was sucked out. And I didn't have but a burning temper tantrum inside me. A hell of agony which was about to burst out. But I calmed myself and determined to do something which were strange for my delicate fingers but I had to do that in order to end this misery and torment.  Two weeks later when I recovered, I started to wave my trap. It was a local festival that night, and my husband was drunk excessively. He returned home, did with me what he was used to, and then started snoring, laying on the bed. I was just yearning for this moment.

I took out the knife, which I have been honing for the last one week, looked at his face, which has never been as ugly as it was looking right now. And at the next moment he was grunting like a hog. The blood jetting out of his sliced throat was compensating me for that immense pleasure which I lacked in my life until now. Then I left that place forever. And took shelter at a shelter home. They gave me a new name and a new life.

Looking at her in amazement, I had many questions nagging my mind, but her last word still buzz in my  ears, “ I wanted my freedom, and he wanted more than his freedom, he wanted what that didn't belong to him. And one who wants more than his freedom, must be punished. I did what I felt to be good, because that was the only way to let the good happen, and whenever something good happens, it causes pain, and so, I did, and I don't feel sorry for it.”