Meera

Meera stared at the back of her drunk husband’s head, as he leaned over the fireplace, turning something over in his hand. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but experience told her it couldn’t be something to look forward to. She took some cautious steps back, and parked herself into a corner of the room, crouched, pulled her sari over her back and waited in silence.

*

 
When she woke up, she was still curled up in the corner farthest away from the fireplace. He was gone. Her worn out red saree lay unravelled to a side. Slowly, gingerly, she made to get up, and her knees buckled. Her head swam and she slumped to the floor, throwing up, gasping. Meera sat there a moment, leaning against the peeling plaster, breathing deeply, eyes shut. She felt lighter. Purged. Was this how it was meant to be?

She breathed some more, and this time, her legs lifted her weight. She gathered her saree, and walked to the basin to inspect the damage. The imprint of his thick fingers on her frail fair cheek. Some dried blood just below her lip from the cut in her mouth. A burnt left palm from last night’s hot poker.

Nothing beyond the usual.

Meera stood for a very long time in front of the dirty, stained mirror in her little house, and marvelled at her own apathy towards herself. She glared lifelessly at her own soulless eyes. Was she dead? Was she alive? Who would know? Who would care.

She tried hard to remember last night’s fight, and couldn’t. ‘Must have been about money, of course’, she thought, wringing her saree to a side to be washed later, and splashing water on her face. ‘That wretched bastard, he drinks like a fish.’ Her stomach rumbled. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d eaten well. Back at her mother’s place in Sujangarh, perhaps. And yet she always seemed to be puking these days.

Oh how she longed to go back. But there was no money. And she knew not the way. She had been here ever since he had married her. Seven years is a long time. Meera was forgetting it all now.

She wiped clean the floor, put on the only other saree she had, and set out to work.

Her memsahib greeted her with the usual reproach. ‘Meera, if you’re late one more time, don’t bother to arrive. Hundreds of women begging for work out there. I’m not obliged to keep paying you for your tantrums.’

Meera mumbled an inaudible apology and went straight to the kitchen to wash the dishes. A loud gasp escaped her mouth.

‘What is it now?’ the memsahib snarled.

‘I burnt my hand yesterday, cooking for my man. The pan—‘

She fell to the ground.

*

 

Meera stared at the back of her drunk husband’s head, as he leaned over the fireplace, turning something over in his hand. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but experience told her it couldn’t be something to look forward to. She took some cautious steps back, and parked herself into a corner of the room, crouched, pulled her sari over her back and waited in silence.

Presently he turned, a red hot knife in his hand. Quickly closing the distance between him and his wife, he stood in front of her, leaning, his face inches away from hers, his cold bloodshot eyes boring into her gauntless face. Grabbing her hair mercilessly, he pulled her to her feet, slammed her into the wall, and reached into her blouse to retrieve the little pouch in which she kept her money.

“I’m pregnant.”

There was silence.

And then he slapped her again. Her lip began to bleed.

Smack!

The bloodshot eyes widened with the sting of the slap on his cheek, as tears welled up in Meera’s impassive eyes after years.