Every hour, I look at the mirror, trying to locate the ‘me’ behind the heavy makeup. I check my eyelashes, my lipstick, the expensive designer dress that perfectly reflects ‘beauty,’ and yet something is missing. Something that people say I have lost. And I lust for what is lost, although I do not understand the mechanisms through which society points it out.
My mobile rings. The person on the other side says he’ll pick me up in five minutes. I hang up after the approval. The gadget, very costly, was gifted to me by a top businessman from town. I gaze at my sari, again in the mirror. It’s a present from one of those famous anchors on television. One by one, I calculate the price (and the donors) of everything I wear—from the hairpins, to the nail polish. Alas…Nothing is mine. As tears roll down my cheeks, I accept that my body is not mine.
The sharp sound of the horn brings me back to the present and my observation of myself in the
mirror. I wipe the two small drops, puff a little powder, and look at the mirror one last time. I know that as long as my beauty and youth survive, I survive. I put on my sandals, and before I can remember whose present these were, the car horn sounds again. I lock the door and head towards the red car. The man, who is among the city’s most renowned personalities, opens the door and smiles an artificial smile. I hate such smiles, but reluctantly smile back.
I sit beside him. He stares at me for a few seconds. His eyes then slip downwards, scanning my whole body with them as if with an X-ray machine. As if he were a doctor about to write a prescription for my illness, my poverty, based on the results of the X-ray. I look straight in his eyes. He looks away, and starts driving.
Our journey starts at 11, and as he drives, I recall the journey of my life. Had I been in the village, my mother would’ve been planning her grandchildren’s names right now. Had my father been alive, I would, perhaps, have never needed to leave the village.
Prosperity is a boon. Only the poor can understand the pain that comes with their poverty. My mother and I had already seen the worst times of our lives. There could be no worse than this, my mother thought. So, when Resh proposed that he would marry me, she was more than happy. She agreed, and I had to agree. I took Resh as a gentle person, someone I referred to as ‘dai.’ I
had never surmised that he had indeed harboured romantic feelings for me.
Our marriage took place at the local temple, and Resh and I vowed to be each other’s lovers, guardians and protectors. I had, at that time, believed that my days of misery were gone. I had thought that happy days awaited me then. Little did I know that this was to be the beginning of a horror episode in my life; an episode that still continues today.
We moved to the Capital in hopes of a better future. Resh started looking for a job and I began looking after the ‘house’—a single room that in itself was the bedroom, the kitchen, and also the living room. At first, even this life seemed perfect. As in reel life, we’d thought that we’d overcome our poverty as long as our love for each other shone brightly. Real life, however, is far more cruel and ugly. Although I continued being faithful to the vows we’d taken together, Resh was overcome by a sense of faliture; the ‘thunder’ that poverty is, had finally struck him down.
I tried consoling him, told him that our days of difficulty would soon be over; but all this to no avail. I now know what being poor can do to people. They become greedy and hungry, like jackals ready to feed on prey that is still alive. For Resh, I became that prey.
Some hunters are driven by lust for money, others by lust for the body. When these two groups meet, as in my case, emotions are assassinated and bodies are snatched. Tears overflow, and what remains? Just the carcasses of broken trust, shattered dreams and a bunch of questions that no one can answer.
Even after all that he had done to me, I really believed that Resh would, some day, realise that his actions had been grave misdeeds. My faith in my own belief that he’d always be with me even compelled me to bear all that he did to me. In a way, I did not want to lose the security of my life—my husband. To earn him, I had to lose myself every day.
But one day, he left. I lay there on the veranda, tears all over my eyes, my dupatta on the ground, after a failed attempt at stopping him. I begged him not to go, “For the sake of our marriage,” I told him, but he had nothing but blame for me.
The neighbourhood had turned into a stadium.
All eyes and ears set on us. I,
holding on to his legs, he, dragging me, and getting out of the door. I shouted at him that I was his wife. My husband, in front of all those strangers yelled, “Wife!! You claim to be my wife? You bitch! Fool around with all the other men, and you still behave as if you are the victim! You’re a characterless woman. I would rather embrace a widow as my wife than someone who has lost her
character! Understood!??”
I froze. I could not think, let alone react. He walked out; on our marriage and on my pride. The
sceptical eyes staring at me, were no less painful than the eyes all the strangers making artificial love to me. I felt a tremor in my head and fell unconscious. When I came back to my senses, I was still there, in the same position and condition. Not a single person had come to help me. I have, ever since that day, known that the society is devoid of emotions, par humanity. And being a part of it, I had to be emotionless too, if I was to fulfil my needs, and survive in this inhuman world.
The car stops. I can see the watchman open the gates. We enter the bedroom, and both of us become the hunters. He ruthlessly hunts my body, and I stab my character, which—by the way— has been lost many times. Every time I open the door to a bedroom, I search for a character. May be one day, I too, like my clients, will satisfy the lust for my lost character.
- Pratistha Paneru
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