I AM THE ONE WHO GOT DEATH BEFORE LIFE,
AND I AM THE ONE WITH TEARS BEFORE SMILE.
I EXIST HERE AS A DAWNED PEARL,
I AM THE ONE, YES, I AM A GIRL.

Centuries have rolled into oblivion, history has lamented over me, the sun flashes sympathy over me with every tender ray emanated. The moon will stand horrified witness to your inhumane treatment to me until the time Nature amalgamates with Eternity. Your insatiable desire to pinion my wings and tame my spirits to the shackles of household and traditional prevalence has though grossed much fame to your patriarchal hegemony; the individualistic role played by each member of your dominion shall not be masked for much time, now. My story will surely invoke the sleeping conscience of humans, only humans. You tried to propagate my insignificance in tandem to deprive me of my rights as an equal to man. You strived to shut my mouth on the untenable excuses under the incognitos of religion, custom and nature. You declared statements against me if I tried to retaliate. You stopped me to speak the just. But now, much has been borne. Everything beyond limit is fatal. Of course, this domination that has exceeded its boundaries of tolerance shall too prove fatal; fatal to you.

I have been looked upon as a burden since my very birth and then again, I carried burdens within myself throughout my life, the burden of discrimination of parents who cared more about my brother, the burden of displeasure of my husband who tortured me every moment, the burden of a wish of my in-laws who wanted a baby boy from me. Doesn’t it move you to shame to treat such a person as a lumber who has carried you for 36 weeks of painful nights and perspiring days of summers and winters as a part of herself? Where did your honor vanish to fast such a person who has fed you with her own blood for nine months? Each and every moment my heart has wept, though I know my tears will be invisible to the blind eyes of your callous conscience.

When my arrival was confirmed in this world, you welcomed me with knitted brows and heavy hearts. People came to see me and greeted my parents with no gifts but cold sighs and consolations. Somebody suggested female feticide but the festival of Ashtami saved me. Only God can recompense your hypocrisy. As I grew up, it was you who refrained me from education and shoved me into an abyss of ignorance for all of my life and simultaneously, my brother earned degrees and fame. And performing the households, I grew up into an adult, deaf to the realities of the world. My advancing years deepened the streaks of your forehead as you strived to dispose the garbage of your house. Desperate due to your inability to secure a husband for me, you started seeking other ways. Life had almost turned a desert for me. And then, someone from you showed a ray of hope. My helplessness enforced me to cling to it and I fell to his pretence. He played with me, my chastity was tampered with and I was again ditched. It was a common experience for me for I had trained my heart to live with this melancholy. I didn’t abandon patience and nor did misfortune left me; Misery now seems synonymous to woman, isn’t it?

A lady and a gentleman, who happened to be my parents, ultimately got rid of their trivia as they married me. I served you as a slave, a pathetic victim of those terrible strikes and lashes on my back; I tolerated them with a dead smile. I took your joys as my happiness, your sorrows as my grievances, your anger as my fortune and your tortures as my life. You took pleasure until the day I became a hackney for you. Day after day, you pushed me into unfathomable miseries. And then an awful eve, a truth I had always dreaded stood starkly in front of my eyes. The presence of a female fetus within me enticed the worst furies in you. Your family cursed me for this. They teased me every other moment that burnt my heart. Was it really my fault? How fortunate it would have been if you knew that you were at guilt! It was because of you, as sperms determine the gender of off-springs. But education is a rare gift. God also doesn’t bother to waste it upon blinds like you. You knew nothing and you cared for none except your beastly self-centeredness. Her unspoken anguish shouted to me of her pains but you, didn’t want to hear them. You had devastated me, shattered my very maternity but still I tolerated your cruelties.

When an old friend of mine came to visit me, you accused me of adultery and called me a s***. Perhaps this was one of the debacles of you and your people aimed to eradicate my existence from your life. And when your constant methods didn’t prove useful, you directly shoved the divorce papers under my nose on the pretext of an unsuccessful married life. You brought fake certificates of my infertility, false witnesses against me and finally, you got rid of me. You had won but my tussle didn’t end here.

I left your place, yearning for some sympathy from my sibling. But my brother couldn’t tolerate a divorcee in his house as it was blotting his social image. My parents, what to say of them? The words of my brother were binding rules upon them.

And now as I am again blessed by a daughter, a fact hidden from my husband, I lead a life of seclusion with her. Tentacles of fears have lost all grips upon me. I have learned now to face everything bravely in this ‘man-world‘. After all such tribulations, I still have a hope, although a false one-Every dark storm brings a foreboding of a bright, pleasant day.


NONE OFFERED HELP, NO SHOULDERS OF SOLACE
WHAT PLACE IS THIS EARTH, THE PEOPLE SO MEAN AND BASE?