A Free Bird She Became

“What do you have? Nothing. What are you? A born failure and a loser. No looks, dark complexion but a long tongue,” Manoj said glaring at Sunanda.

Sunanda sat cowered in a corner. Her jaw was dropping. Manoj looked at the room and went away. Sunanda was assaulted  by Manoj daily. She sobbed unconsolably. “He treats me like a foot mat and doesn’t allow me to talk to my parents. He keeps my mobile and me in lock too. I am living the life of a prisoner. My parents have no idea what I am going through.”

But today she was determined  to leave the house. She went near the window and saw a young man passing and beckoned him. She gave him a slip on which her parent’s phone number was written. The young man looking at her tear-stained face and swollen eyes, understood the seriousness of the situation.

Next day her parents came and took her. Her father shouted at Manoj, “You are a brute. My daughter  has a heart of gold and she has been treated as dirt”. A sadist Manoj  was, whose avarice knew no bounds. Sunada’s father warned, “Keep away from my daughter. One day you will repent”.

Back at home Sunanda became a recluse. She often thought how Manoj had appeared to be a  progressive young man with no qualms about her looks or desire for materialistic  goods when he chose to marry her. How his biodata had impressed everyone. An engineer with State Government, a self-made man but the irony is biodata never tells you about the  persona of the person.

Gradually she started coming out of shell and revived her habit of  writing  diary which became her constant companion. Writing proved therapeutic. Her diary became her anatomy, her best friend. The contents of her diary came to light when one day her friend Shivani visited her. When Sunanda went to prepare tea, she read it  and felt she was reading the life stories of many women whose physical and mental scars go unnoticed, trapped in shackles of socially constructed myths. She coaxed Sunanda to get her work published but Sunanda said that nobody would like reading such sad stories. Moreover why should she share her personal  details with anyone. But everyone in the family made her understand  that she can become voice of many women who can’t tell their stories. And so her  saga of suffering  and emerging out of it, with the support  of family got published. It gave courage to many a woman to restructure  their lives. She won Sahitya Akademi Award for her debut work.

And one day Manoj came pleading for a new start. Sunanda looked out of the window, a flight of birds soaring high in a perfect arc. She said “Keep flying. Don’t let anyone clip your wings, never be  prisoner of anyone’s  whims”.

She heard the receding steps of Manoj. A free bird she was  now, the sky her limit.

Ritu Kamra Kumar