by Nag Mani
Another gun shot. She flinched. A distant echo followed. Then silence. She opened her eyes and saw Gauri approach her. She now realised that her blouse was all torn. Gauri covered her body with a dupatta. Manish was quarrelling with the elderly woman. He was slapped, then pushed. Finally, the woman sat on the ground and started beating her chest. Manish came running towards Aditi, the gun now slung across his back.
Aditi was lifted. One of her eyes had swollen. She tasted blood. The men watched silently, eyes flaring anger, as Manish carried her back – across the temple campus, through the barren field, under the shadows of the bamboos, into the courtyard and laid her down on a bed in a dark room. Gauri came in behind him and together with another woman, cleaned and covered her wounds. They brought in a new sari and left. Then the door was shut.
What was happening? Aditi broke into tears, this time not because of the physical pain, but the agony that was suffocating her from within. She needed to contact her husband, call him here and get out of this damned village. She would go back to Purnia, go back home and the first thing she would do was file an FIR against these wild animals. Then came another wave of realisation that shook the very roots of her existence. That after everything, she was still so dependent on her husband. That she wouldn’t have been even touched had he been with her. That he was solely responsible for her dignity, her pride, her respect, even if he did not care. She shut her eyes and counted her breaths. No. She couldn’t calm down. That fucking temple! So much blood. More blood than she had ever seen in her lifetime. The severed body, lumped against the wooden post. The head, staring at her from the darkness of the shrine instead of an idol, its hair soaked in blood, eyes still wide in terror, a portion of the tongue hanging out.
Something was terribly wrong in this village. She had to get going. Ignoring the pain and the shame, she latched the door and changed into the new sari. She needed to get away. But how? The only way out was through the flooded river. Who would take her across? There had always been those signs, from the day she set her foot in here. She should have run away right then. But she ignored them. She was helpless now. And tears began to flow again.
She was in a dark world, suffocating. Panicked. Frightened. She might have dozed off, for she didn’t hear the men coming. The sudden shouts startled her. “Open the door, you slut!” Then a blow and the door bulged inwards. She retreated into a corner, hunched, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, trembling, as if she were dying of cold.
“Open you bitch!” The voice was hoarse. Demeaning. Another blow and the door gave way. A tall, bulky man stepped into the room. Short, curly hair pulled back. Thick beard. Big eyes. He grabbed her hair and pulled her to her feet. Tilting her face upwards, he spat, “I did not believe it the first time they told me about you. I paid for my ignorance. My father let you stay here. And look what you did to him! You are going to pay, bitch! I am going to make you pay!” Then he lifted her over his shoulder. She kicked and she screamed, and the men became wilder. They slapped her thighs and pulled her hair. Amid loud hooting and choruses of insults, she was brought out into an open field through the main gates of the building. She was flung down on the grass, fell hard on her back and knocked her head. Her lights went out. A deep ringing, with a backdrop of deafening silence.
When she regained consciousness, she saw the bulky man standing over her, one foot on her breasts, shoving her this way and that. She tried to push him away, but he was too heavy. Men gathered with a variety of cutting instruments and watched. Women hid in the many shadowy windows of the building and watched. He pulled her up and drove his knee into her stomach. She screamed, but no sound came out. She gasped for air, but nothing came in. He grabbed her neck and forced her around for everyone to see. “You see,” he whispered into her ears, “it won’t be over soon. They are all waiting for their turn. And when they are done, I will have my dogs ride you.” Her hair was grabbed. She was pulled to a ragged piece of bedding in the shade of a tree. Her sari pulled at. Her blouse ripped off her shoulder. The crowd inched closer. Aditi could take it no more. She was exhausted, physically, mentally and emotionally. She could have cried for help, begged if that was what it took – knelt down and begged for forgiveness, mercy… but no one would come forward for her. So, when he took off his shirt and plunged his knee into her stomach again, she let herself fall. Blackness began to surround her. Frightening thoughts passed in a fuzzy.
Blackness was a relief. Terror awaited when the blackness would lift.
Someone was saying something. Then silence. Then too many sounds. Then a voice, “There! There!” Light began to seep in. She saw uniformed men. People were being driven away. A big rowdy crowd had gathered around someone, pushing, scuffling. Aditi suddenly realised she was thirsty. “Water,” she whispered to the air, and her throat went drier. A drop of blood ran into her eye. Her vision became hazy… reddish… She closed her eyes. She tried to think of something good, anything good that had happened in her life. But again, she saw dark waters, threatening her with their ferocity. She felt she was in mortal danger, if not from the men ready to pounce on her, then from the black waters in her imagination.
Someone approached her. “Get up!” commanded a hoarse voice of a man. She didn’t move. Someone else held her arms and tried to lift her. When he couldn’t, he pressed his knees into her back and held her so that she was in a seated position. She felt excruciating pain in her ribs, but the man behind wouldn’t let her lie down. Someone cleared his throat in front of her.
“What is your name?”
She didn’t reply.
“Your name, woman?”
“Sir asks something. Answer!” said the man from behind and pressed his knee harder into her ribs.
She managed to open her eyes. A police officer stood in front of her, a notebook in his hands. He was her age, in his late twenties.
“Name, woman! Speak up!”
“Aditi!” Manish Singh appeared beside the officer. “Aditi Prasad.”
“Husband’s name?” The officer asked in a monotonous tone.
“Manoj Prasad. I told you. He is the bank manager.”
The officer looked up from his notebook, genuinely interested. He eyed her up and down. Manish Singh immediately knelt beside her and covered her shoulders and bosom. “Get her some water,” he shouted at someone.
“Where are you from?” The officer was no longer writing. He too knelt down beside her.
“They came here from Purnia, what, two months…”
“I mean your hometown?”
Aditi knew where her hometown was. But somehow, she couldn’t recall the name. She thought about it. Glimpses of a market. A railway crossing. The massive buildings of a women’s college. A lone rose plant on a raised ground somewhere along the banks of the Ganga…
“Bhagalpur?” asked the inspector.
Yes, that was it! She nodded. The knees behind her withdrew. Darkness began to swallow her again.
“And your father’s name?” came a voice from somewhere.
She was lost. It was peaceful in here. She could die. She wanted to die…
“Shri Shyamlal Prasad? He worked in Dr Saha’s clinic?” asked the voice.
The name brought her back to her senses. She stared at the inspector. How did he know who she was? He came closer. “Aditi! For heaven’s sake, it’s you!” he exclaimed. “What are you doing here? What have you done? All this…”
She had fainted by then.
*
Aditi woke up in Laila’s house. She recognised it the moment she opened her eyes. Small room. Square bed with a mosquito net hanging from one of the four poles. Clothes hung on shagging ropes running across the room. More clothes in the big iron box. It was her eldest daughter’s room. Zeenat.
Laila rushed into the room, probably to get something, but stopped dead when she saw her awake. And the look she gave… it was clear Aditi shouldn’t be there. Laila stormed out and shouted something. Moments later, the police officer entered the roo
m. “How are you feeling now?” he asked.
And the incidents of the morning flashed before her eyes. She looked down her molested body. Bruises, finger marks, cuts. And now that she did not have to care for her life, her self-respect overtook her earlier instinct of survival
“I am Neeraj Mishra,” he added on seeing her blank expression. “I hope you remember me...”
Of course she did. He was the one who, long ago, had given her a letter written by someone else. They had met only once. Memories flashed before her. A sliver of happiness wriggled out from the deepest recess of her memory. It shone for a moment, filling her heart with emotions, before the recent events clouded over every happy memory she might have had. “I want to file an F.I.R.”
A commotion erupted in one of the many rooms of the house. Laila was screaming, her voice hoarse and loud. A man was trying to interrupt. His voice was feeble. It lacked authority. Laila dominated.
“About that…” Inspector Mishra seemed taken back for a moment, clearly not expecting such a formal, straight-to-the-point conversation. “I was wondering what are you doing alone in this village? Where is your husband?”
“He has gone to the zonal office in Purnia. Some urgent meeting.”
“Why didn’t he take you along?”
“I was sick. The river is flooding. It was risky enough for him to cross it. On top of that, Araria is all but submerged under water…”
“What were you doing in his house, this Om Prakash Singh?”
“He offered to let me stay while my husband was away.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean why? I was not well. My husband couldn’t leave me alone.”
“I heard you cut your wrist?” he asked, glancing at the bandage around her wrist, stained with red and yellow.
“Yes…” she replied uncertainly.
“Accident? Or…”
She heard the voice whisper to her again. The voice that spoke to her for the first time the previous night. She shuddered. “Yes. I was unpacking. There was a knife in between my clothes. Accidents happen.”
“Is it a deep cut?”
She examined the bandage. “Doesn’t look like. It’s not bleeding anymore.”
The inspector sat back and inhaled deeply, studying her. “And where were you when he was beheaded?”
“What has it got to do with me?”
“Just asking? You know police work. Formal questioning.”
“I was in my room…”
“So you didn’t see him that night after you retired to your room?”
“What? What is with these idiotic questions? A woman was almost raped in front of the entire village, and you here are sitting in front of me and blabbering like a baboon. If you don’t want to file an F.I.R. you better leave this room and drown yourself in some tiny hole of shit!”
“Look, here, Aditi!” Inspector Mishra straightened his posture, his voice calm and calculated. “I am your friend! Whatever you think I am doing, be clear on this – I am here to help you. And let me tell you, you are in deep trouble! What happened in his house is none of my personal concern. You didn’t do it and after that I don’t give a damn! I will report the case and carry out the routine work. Arrest some absconding criminal and put it on him for all I care. But you need to call your husband and get out of this village… as soon as you can!”
“I will not leave until I have those men behind bars. I will file an F.I.R. I will go to court.” Aditi suddenly realised that she was brave. She had never spoken like this to anyone. It was always her husband she relied upon for her justice, father before marriage and husband after, and none of them ever took a stand for her. Now that she had no one but herself to fight her fight, she found the courage that she had assumed never existed. Yes, she would go to court. Yes, she would do anything to defend her honour and dignity. “And if you can’t help me, I will find someone else.”
“File an F.I.R., will you?” Inspector Mishra retorted, his voice still low and soft. His skin was brown and tanned. His face hard. Lips slightly apart below thick moustache. His already greying hair cropped short. “Who will be your witness?”
“Everything happened out in the open…”
“You think it is that simple? But believe me when I say, no one will come forward. I have been here in this village for almost three years now. And let me tell you this, no one wants to mess with their family. And besides, where is your guardian? A woman cannot go to any court without a guardian. No lawyer will take up your case unless your husband agrees to it.”
“You think I am another of your illiterate village women? You think I can’t get lawyers to fight my case?”
“Here. Let me tell you straight. Om Prakash Singh is dead. His wife and son think you are the culprit. Oh god-damn-it, the entire village thinks you performed some dark magic last night. And not just last night. Three people have died in a span of two weeks, and every time, you were to be blamed. They want revenge, and you quite well know what sort of revenge that will be. You will only irk them further if you go about setting the police on them. You can file an F.I.R., but I don’t have enough men to arrest them all. They will come after you. I can hold them for a night. I can take them to my station for questioning. It is across the river. A storm is coming tonight. They won’t be able to across it back once it comes. But once they return, there is nothing more I can do.”
It took a while to digest the situation. Another quarrel broke out somewhere in the house. It was Laila again. “It’s easy for you men, isn’t it?” Aditi said blankly. “To punish a man, I need to go to a court, risk getting exploited, is it? But to punish a woman, all you need to do is drag her out and strip her naked. And there you go. You have punished her and taken your revenge. Rape. Why do you men see it as a punishment?”
“Only men? They do it, yes. They play their part in doing it. But it’s also the women who punish her thereon.”
Silence. Even Laila wasn’t shouting. Then a baby started crying.
“Manish Singh is trying to contact your husband. Be ready. I need to sort things out.” The inspector stood up, his heavy frame towering over her. “He will help you get out of here.” He opened his mouth to say something else. Hesitated. Shook his head and left.
Few minutes later, a girl of nine poked her head in. “Aunty,” she whispered and as if scared, silently carried a plate of food into the room. She set up a stool beside the bed, looking down all along.
“Come here, Zoya,” Aditi reached out to her and stroked her hair.
“Why? Food is not enough for you?” Laila walked into the room, her eyes red and lips trembling with rage. “You want to have my daughter as well?”
“You will not speak like that!” A thin man entered behind her. Razzak, Laila’s husband. Rushing in, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her out of the room. Words were exchanged. A bit of scuffling. Then there was a ringing sound of a slap. Zoya froze in her act of laying out the food, staring at the door. Aditi pulled her into an embrace. More people seemed to have gathered outside the room. More voices. More men. An old woman began to cry somewhere in the house, but no one seemed to pay any attention.
“Aunty, are you a daayan?” Zoya asked her in tone so polite that Aditi smiled at the irony.
“Who told you that?”
“My mother. She says you know dark magic. That you worship in that haunted temple.”
Aditi bit her lips, not knowing how to answer.
“Zoya!” Laila shouted from somewhere in the house. “What are you doing with that cursed woman? Come down here. NOW!”
Zoya wriggled out of her grip and dashed out of the room.
The windows of the room began to rattle. A distant thunder. The police officer had said that a storm was coming. But she couldn’t stay here. This wasn’t her home. Something heavy crashed outside the house. A commotion broke inside immediately. People ran. Doors and windows were slammed shut. The wind was picking up speed. She rose to her feet. She had to go back to her house. But
then… she remembered what awaited her there… behind that closed door, in that corner room. She had lived there for two months now, ignoring the presence, forcing herself to believe it wasn’t real. But it was – for the previous night it had replied.
A woman appeared at the door with an oil lantern, placed it on the stool beside the untouched food and left without a word.
Had it been some other time, Aditi could swear that she wouldn’t have even looked at the food. She would have marched out of that house, empty stomach, but her head held high. But this was a different time altogether. Her pride came in waves, making her restless to do something, anything to get away. But then came the incidents of the morning. She had been molested, beaten, almost stripped naked and almost raped in front of half the village. What were the sharp words of a mother compared to that? With this thought, the restlessness would ease and she would slump down on her bed and close her eyes. One more night, she assured herself, and she would leave and never return to this village again.
The chapattis hardened and the kheer turned cold. The storm grew ugly. Strong winds buzzed in through cracks in doors and windows. Chickens and goats were brought inside, and they too sat huddled in a corner of a room.
As the night matured, the winds brought in distant shouts of men. Aditi sat up, shivering. The clouds continued to thunder, promising a rain they had never seen before. Zoya appeared at the door. “Aunty!” she whispered, excited and frightened at the same time. She had brought news. “There are men,” she said, her eyes wide. “They are marching through the fields. They are carrying torches; I saw them from my window. And Ammi says they might also have swords. One of them even has a gun!”
Aditi cupped her face. “Are they coming this way?”
“No. They are heading for the river.”
Aditi knew she had to leave immediately. These men must be going to the police station to bring their leader back. She was uncertain if Razzak would give her away. Nevertheless, she had to leave. She walked out and down a set of stairs into a hall. Another fight had broken upstairs. Utensils were being thrown in the kitchen. The woman who had brought the lantern stood anxiously at the doorway of a room; her husband, Salman, Razzak’s youngest brother, sat on the edge of a bed behind her. Aditi opened the main door and stepped out.