The girl next door

Friday evening, as usual we were gathered for our innovation meet. I and my friends used to meet in this Bookish café and discuss about various ideas that we could implement in various sectors of our business/profession and sometimes even in our life. It was an open circle and anyone with relevant ideas could participate and contribute. Our topics ranged from current affairs to historical facts and theories and sometimes we even used to discuss about cultural and social stuffs. It was basically a sort of support group for us where we discussed and helped each other in our social circle.  It’s the world cup season and I had planned to put up the world cup theme for our meetup this weekend. The café was decorated with flags of the countries participating in world cup football competition and it was such a great topic to discuss as it had large scale business connection. I prepared the notes and presentations, and made the seating arrangements.

Soon Binay appeared complaining about the messy mess in his office. He was accompanied by Srijana his co-worker, a bright and cheerful lady. She never disagreed with anyone, so everyone liked her. Binay is the opposite. He is a control freak. He wants everything to be as he wants, else his complains never end. Soon he started complaining about the absence of Nepali flag among the other flags in the café with the waiter. The waiter had real hard time explaining that Nepal wasn’t qualified for the world cup. Clamorous voice of Aakash took everybody’s attention. He came in with a new girl. She was of fair complexioned, lean body and short height. She wore a nervous smile in her face. “Hey lads, she is Sikha, my neighbor. She was inquisitive about the idea of our weekly meet so I decided to bring her.” Srijana and I welcomed her in and surely Binay had some complains about that too. Shortly everyone was there and our discussion began.

I started with my statistics about the jersey sales during the last months to world cup. I presented the data from past few years and proved it had a great business potential if could be managed. Similarly, I pointed out the quality of jerseys that were imported to Nepal, the prices charged for it and the margin the sellers keep. I then proceeded to various business strategies that other products that can be implemented based on the world cup craze. My major example was the statistics of sky rocketing sales of RumPum noodles during 2004 world cup when they had this strategy of putting world cup players’ card inside the packet and the customer could win exciting prizes if they could collect the cards of all eleven players of a team. Everything was going well and I hear this laughter from the back. It was Sikha. Her laughter was sudden and startled everyone and soon she found everyone looking towards her. She got anxious and her face turned pale. To avoid the awkwardness I decided to have a little chat with her.

“Why don’t you share us the funny part? We all are bored here.”

She stammered, “I…. I am really sorry to interrupt you, but I kind of imagine this to be like some Ted talk. And this business stuff is going over my head. An.. And I was thinking about the talk I had prepared, and how it is so irrelevant for this group, I couldn’t stop but laugh at myself.”

“It’s not like that. We talk about all the issues. And we would all love to hear what you have to say. What is the speaking schedule Subash?”

Subash used to prepare the speaking schedule and allocate time for the speakers. He promptly provided Shika the time slot after Bikram’s talk of this year’s financial budget.

After I finished my part, Nabin talked about the government’s policy about the land reform in the country and its adverse effect on the real estate industries, Suraj spoke about the crypto kitties and Bikram critically analyzed this year’s financial budget. It was finally Sikha’s turn. She nervously walked towards the podium and slowly scanned the audience. Many people who intentionally or unintentionally arrived in the Bookish café were all in the audience. She took a deep breath and started:

“I would like to start thanking Aakash dai for bringing me here today. It was like the most productive evening I have had in, like years.” She chuckled. “It’s usually lonely me and crowded facebook”. She was feeling more confident. Anyone could say she hadn’t had much experience of public speaking and more than hundred eyes all focused towards her surely made her uneasy.

“I am here with a different talk today. I have a story and a question. An exceptional story of women in rural area of our country who have to face hardships in every turn of her life. And a question I want to ask the learned community like everyone gathered here.

The daughter was born a sin. Her father raped her mother while she was out in the jungle for grazing the cattle. A young girl of eighteen, full of youth and vigor, each vultures wanted a piece of her. The man secretly followed her to the jungle and groped her. She struggled for a while and when she realized it out of her might she let him destroy her piece by piece. She didn’t shout or scream because it was of no use. No one would hear her and even if somebody did, it would be a bigger problem for her. She went home broken that evening and her mother asked her to shush and forget that anything had happened. But sins cannot be shushed. She got pregnant and the words came out. The man had to marry her and few months later the daughter was born. The man who hated her for getting caught took the marriage as a punishment and the daughter as a tumor that would slowly eat him up. He despised his wife and daughter. He drank a lot and abused her physically and mentally. He would come late in night and rape her and beat her to bruises. He would then lament about how she destroyed his life. He would then be furious and threaten to kill his wife and infant daughter and she would carry her daughter and run. She would go to her mother for help, mortified and grieved; but her mother couldn’t give anything other than a reminder of that being her fate and a suggestion to learn to endure. Both mother and daughter would sob all night and in the morning she had to return to the devil to be abused carrying an infant. I sometimes wonder how austere the mother’s heart must have been that would send her daughter to live in a hell.

One day the man came home with a woman. She suffered all the abuses; she accepted all those as the gift from her husband and made it her way of life. But this was beyond all her endurance. However he was, he was her husband, her life support. She had built her home in thorns but it was her home and she realized it was being destroyed one wall after another. It was no more bearable and she protested. She screamed and shouted. She hits both of them with everything she gets her hands on. Her sudden reaction startles him, he laughs her at her plight and smacks her in her face. Her mouth bleeds and she falls to the floor. She loses all her strength even to get up and she just lays there helpless while he fucks the other lady mercilessly in front of her. All kinds of thoughts strike on her mind all night. Her whole life plays in front of her eyes. A dreadful horror. She laughs at herself for acceptance and endurance and cries at her destitution. She decides to end the pain once and for all. These thoughts of killing herself came to her many times before; but she would see the face of her infant daughter and would gain a new hope to live. A hope that maybe one day her husband would start loving her. Her daughter would grow and love her. She would have a family. But she felt different tonight. She saw darkness in the face of her daughter. She saw her daughter being fucked by her own father; being sold in a brothel by her own father; being raped by a stranger and married to the rapist. It was all in a circle. Life of a daughter alike to the life of a mother. She couldn’t bear this thought. She looked around. In the darkness she saw two bodies tangled, breathing heavily in the bed, small body on the floor on other side of the room and a knife near the oven. The fire was still burning in the oven and the knife was shining in the light. She felt strange on her chest. Her heart beat increased and her vision got dizzy but she felt a great strength on her arms and legs and slowly it flowed all over her body. She slowly gets up and picks the knife and walks towards the bed. She feels calm inside her and after a long dark night she sees light. A light shining on the blade of the knife in her hand. She comes near to her husband, raised hand, ready to pound the blade in his chest and end this horror saga. She looked at his face and noticed how ugly he was. She had never observed that before. He was really an incarnation of devil both by his behavior and appearance, she thought. Suddenly her daughter starts crying. She feels like her daughter is asking her to free her from this devil. The devil’s head grows bigger. It covers all the space and his eyes opens. She closes her eyes and thumps the knife in his chest but he catches it. Suddenly she feels a deep cut in her chest. There is no pain but she hears a child’s cry. She must have woken up in all the chaos, she thinks. She feels like something is pulling her behind and she falls. She falls and falls in complete darkness and dissolves.

The woman screams and the man realizes what he just did. The women screaming and shouting; the child’s crying panics him and he smacks the women, who then falls unconscious. Then he gets out of the house only to find the neighbors and villagers on the door. They must have heard the chaos. It was a small village so almost everyone knew each other. They were all his friends and relatives. The man cried and apologized for killing her, he told the story how she was trying to kill him and all. They decided to give him a chance to life but only if he agrees to marry the woman and take care of the child. He promises to take care of both of them and quit all his bad habits. He cries the dead woman’s name and declares that his old self died with her and he will start his new life from now on. They helped him clear the mess, wrapped the dead body in a sheet and carried it to the river and threw over.

That event changed the man. He now started loving his daughter as she had saved him from her mother. If the child hadn’t cried at the moment he wouldn’t have woke up and she would have pounded the knife in his chest.

He quits drinking and starts working in a factory in a nearby town. He gains a good reputation in the work and is soon promoted to higher level. He provides well for his wife and daughter and they share deep love and affection for him. They write letters to each other while he is away working. They do a big celebration while he is back home.  Few years pass by and he saves enough money to shift his family to the town. He sends his daughter to a good school buys her nice clothes. More years passes by and the love sustains. The daughter is all grown up and is in college now. She knows the truth about the past. It came in many forms from many people with various intentions. She always ignored it and never let it affect her. She is ready to forgive.

Was the sin forgivable?

Thank you.”

The silent crowd suddenly burst with applaud. Our sessions had never experienced his aura. Everyone congratulated her for her story and gave their opinions. I ended the sessions thanking all the participants and audiences.