The Story Of…..

I shivered in the dark. I felt I had slept enough but I dint feel less tired. I wanted to check what time of the day it is. The only part I wished to move is eye and the skin covering it. I found that difficult too. I felt like something was obstructing me from opening my eyes, like a bee had stung me just below my eye and the swelling obstructed me from opening my eye completely. I managed to take a peek of the dark tiny room. It seemed like the early morning light entered through the petite holes in the moss ridden moist wooden door. I want to get up and open it completely. I try getting up but I don’t, I can’t. My long thin hair seems thinner. I want to chop it off, but that would be a sin I guess. I have to get up. As I try to move, the thin cylindrical legs of the palang creak. The rope crisscrossed between the rectangular frame of the palang is pressured down by my weight. I try to use my left hand to sit upright since my right hand seems lifeless, but my left hand too feels like it’s drained out of blood. I fall back on the palang, it hurts my shoulder, my body. I try to remember what had gone wrong, I couldn’t. I fade out.

A bright beam of light striking my face wakes me up. It seems like noon. I felt myself. My blouse was ripped off at the shoulders. I felt deep cuts with dried blood around it. I could hear the buzzing of flies. I could remember now.

Last night I had walked into my mud hut, happy and cheerful, for me and my little son. He was about five. I walked into the tiny shelter at around 8:30 p.m. where I saw my little one waiting for me. His eyes sparkling with happiness as he saw me walk in. I walked 2 steps and hugged him. I said “I promise you will go to school now. You will study and grow up to be a respected rich man”. I lit a flame by accumulating the trash I had collected on the way home. I kept a blackened, deformed, steel utensil on the flame. I hardly noticed the water boil, I was dreaming of a world, far from these slums. I saw a shadow rise behind me. I turned. Before I could completely get a glimpse, I saw a huge dark palm coming right at my cheek. I hit the ground. I could smell alcohol all over him. My son began to cry. I looked up, it was my husband, muddy white shirt loosely hanging over his kaki pants, drunk and not satisfied. He grabbed hold of my hair, pulled it to make me stand, and mumbled something in his half conscious state. When I dint reply he smacked me across the face again. I fell to the ground, my head hitting the palang hard enough to cause a bruise. Before I could get up he was kicking me with all his might, his shoes piercing my stomach, ripping my saree. He was yelling, he wanted the money I had earned over the month, cleaning dirty toilets all day. When I refused, he retrieved a knife from the side of his pant, slashed it over my shoulders, again grabbed my hair and banged my head against the wall. I still wouldn’t give him the money I had collected for my son’s school. My son was wailing away at the corner of the room. My husband charged towards him, crushed the collar of his shirt. I tried to push him off. He pushed the water boiling towards me, it burnt my feet. I fell on the palang. He stabbed my son three to four times, right in front of my eyes. I remember my son squealing, him trying to pull out the money pocketed in my blouse, me letting go.

My son’s bloody body lying cramped at the corner.