Skip to main content

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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Picture Perfect

When you begin work on a painting, you set out on a long difficult journey to the end. Begin by thinking, sketching out on the canvas a rough figure of what you want. It’s an easy task, you've barely begun—you can always erase, redraw, alter, or even start over. Then comes the time for colours. And while there are hundreds and thousands of them to choose from, there are just a few, at times just one, that will be a perfect fit. Choices are tough to make—some may be right, others may go horribly wrong. Yet there’s no choice but to choose. After long toil and much sweat, you come up with the final piece. Some paintings will inspire. They’ll be so beautiful that they’ll leave a mark in your heart and mind for ages to come. Some will be soothing, others will make you smile. And then there will be those that will make you feel simply wasted. Pictures that will only speak to you of your incompetence and inability to make the right choices. Surprisingly, sometimes these may be the p...
6 comments
Read more

Alarming Tones

Every time I watch a cliché romantic Bollywood flick, I find myself wishing I could be one of those diligent, sound-sensitive, got-no-time-to-waste NRI people they always end up showing. The ones who wake up bang in sync with the alarm clock’s first bell, get right on their feet and robotically rush into the bathroom. Get dressed, do their morning pooja with long wet hair neatly pulled over one shoulder and eyes brimming with shraddha, and then slip into the busy streets on New York, striding happily, with a Starbucks Coffee to complete the look.   And even after all the morning propaganda manage to be one of the earliest people to reach the office and gain a promotion. I wish, I wish! However, over all these years of my being, I’ve only managed to figure out that I have some sort of an inbuilt anti-alarm mechanism in me—and as much as I may try, alarms are never very successful in shaking me out of my sleep. Consequently, I’m more of the ‘oh shit phir late!’ people than the ‘perfe...
5 comments
Read more

Nostalgia

The past one year was dotted with moments of depression. Wave after wave of panic, fear and anxiety hit us, as we realised that this was it. Our last few days together. That in a matter of mere months we were to step out of the place we’d called home for the past 14 years, out into that big, bad world of college admissions and jobs and incessant slogging. Hysterical laughter led to tears, then depression, then desperation and sad sighs. Crazy games, never touched after class IV, came back with a bang, and suddenly 12th standard students were running around playing ‘vish-amrit’ and fighting over whether ‘bhaalu’ was an acceptable animal in ‘Name-Place-Animal-Thing’. Songs were sung and dedicated to each other. Every lunch eaten in the second period became more special, every bit relished with an increasing sense of satisfaction. The one trip to Corbett as enjoyed as if everyone was facing a life-sentence back in Delhi. Every party became crazier, every dance more uncontrollable. I lo...
5 comments
Read more