Chapter 4: What Came Before

My father was a government doctor. I was a concubine’s daughter, orphaned young, but my father was always kind and loving to me. The smell of antiseptic and medicinal herbs clung to his clothes, and sometimes old Kishore Kumar songs crackled from the radio as I sat on his lap, tracing the lines of his palm while he read me stories from his medical books, his laughter echoing in our small courtyard.

After my father died, my stepmother tried to seize the family property and sell all the concubines’ daughters to human traffickers.

The night before the traffickers arrived, I went to beg the poor lecturer whom I had brought food to every day. The lane to his house was lined with neem trees, their shadows long and ominous.

I heard he had just cleared the UPSC exam, but he refused me at the door. The door remained shut, only the faint light from his lantern shining through the crack below.

He stood inside, not even willing to open the door a crack.

'Sharmaji, main ab Collector sahab ki beti se mangni kar chuka hoon. Aap samajh rahi hain na? Aurat-mard ka aise milna theek nahi. Yeh lo, paise—jo khana diya tha, uska hisaab.'

A money envelope was tossed over the low wall. It fluttered to my feet like an accusation, the yellowed paper crisp under my trembling hands.

My heart felt as if pierced by needles, aching faintly. I swallowed my pride with the dust of the street, the taste bitter on my tongue.

Later, I quarreled with my stepmother in the street. Neighbours peeped from their windows, tut-tutting, but no one interfered.

She threatened that if I resisted again, she’d sell me to a kotha. Her voice was full of venom, and for a moment I thought she really would.

Fortunately, the Collector’s wife happened to pass by and bought my contract, taking me in as a maid. I sat in the Ambassador, my hands sticky with fear, the smell of naphthalene balls from my hastily-packed trunk making my head swim, clutching the last piece of roti from home in my fist, not knowing if I’d ever see that lane again.

Not long after, that lecturer became my Madam’s husband. The wedding was grand, the whole town invited. I stood by the door, serving sherbet, hiding behind a borrowed dupatta.

I pretended not to know him and served Madam diligently. Every time I heard his laugh, I remembered the envelope on the street, the ache in my chest a dull throb.

Unexpectedly, she still found out.

There was no point resisting anymore.

I lifted my saree and knelt respectfully before Old Madam Sharma: 'Madam, I am willing to marry Colonel Arjun, to bring him luck and serve you in your old age.' My voice rang out in the quiet room, surprising even myself. It was not just surrender, but a sliver of hope that this new family might, just might, accept me as one of their own.