A DEW DROP...
A dew drop?
A tear drop?
A drop of moisture -a tear of Nature...
She tells a story of water that has been evaporated from a clothesline,that dries off the skirt of a thirteen year old who had been forcefully abducted as she was walking home from school.
Her parents were farm laborers and did not even know of her plight..three men gang raped her and discarded her when they heard the siren of a police van-she was hurt,bleeding,scared and left for dead.
The lame, polio stricken boy, a social outcast as he was considered useless as a farm hand due to his affliction,dragged her to the lake.
Helped her bathe,washed her clothes,dressed her with it again and took her back to the hovel,a thatched dwelling ,that she knew as home.
.Ashamed to even tell her poverty stricken family and unwilling to add to their misery,she lay abjectly on the bundle of hay,wondering what life had in store for her.
A thought suddenly had her sitting up.
They will be back soon,weary,dirty, bone tired after 12 hours of hard work in the merciless sun.
She dragged herself to the dirt mud shaped kiln,fed some logs and started the fire to boil water for gruel with a fistful of rice,some crushed pepper.basil and whatever she had collected on her way to school before the hurtful incident.
She recollected her mother soothing the neighbors ten year old who was with child and her pitiful wails as her frail body was too malnourished for child bearing.Fearing the same fate she vowed to tell her story and find out how to prevent that pitiful state so a repeat of what had happened today could be avoided.
Gathered around the small shed ,after washing away the days sweat and toil,her father proudly asked her to teach the family her lessons.She gamely retold the alphabets, numbers,the stories,colors ,names of plants and vegetables.Soon they retired for the day, her father and brother snoring loudly.
Her stomach hurt ,the torn and mangled privates also bled,she crept to her mother and in sobs told the story.Not a word in reply,her mother applied a paste of turmeric and mehendi leaves,made her drink a vile concoction that made her stomach heave ,she felt her whole body begin to shiver and shake and soon lost consciousness.
The warmth of sunlight soothed her body,she was spent and drained but felt cleansed.
Drinking the watery gruel,she felt tears well up when the family ,who had packed their meager belongings were ready to move on to the next village in hopes of employment.
Mother had somehow convinced them the need to relocate.
Recalling that her teacher was from the nearby town she directed the family there.
Soon they traced the family,spoke of the recommendation.The couple housed,fed,and gave them a place to sleep.The huge house had a worn look,was shabby and ill maintained,her father and brother soon started repairing the broken door,the stairs,the roof while she helped her mother sweep,dust,clean and spruce up the run down house.
The old couple seemed happy and asked them to stay on.The land was vast and fields stretched for acres on either side.The foreman was old and sick so unable to control the field hands who took advantage and neglected farm work.Stepping up to the task father soon streamlined the workforce,specified the work to be done,repaired the water supply sprinklers,fed the cattle,milked the cows,collected eggs, memded fences.
The family endeared themselves to the couple,who heaved a sigh of relief.
They stayed on,the only stipulation was the children had to attend school.
Scared and fearful she refused but her mother walked with her and waited all day outside weaving grass into lovely handbags and deftly making mats and spreads.
The teacher,impressed by her skills requested she teach them to the children.
Soon mother and daughter attended school together , trekking to and from the house to the small school building.The land around was soon put to use as her father and brother started building the walls.
theAll children helped build the extension so they would not have to sit in the hot sun,the walls were of bamboo that helped keep the hot air out yet provided much needed ventilation and sunlight.Rainy season was no more a dread as they used bamboo thatches and coconut/ palm leaves to keep the water out.
Her brother set up a repair shop which was sorely needed,as cycles,watches,household gadgets all needed repair.
They soon belonged here,a respected family that worked so diligently and soon carved a niche for themselves in the society.
She graduated two years later and the elderly couple blessed her and gifted her the pavadi /dhavani set made of pure pattu.Hair adorned with beautiful fragrant jasmine,forehead smeared with chandanam and kumkumam,she looked so angelic and heart touchingly innocent and beautiful that there was a demand for her hand in marriage.
She was wise and with the support of her parents continued education,earned a degree in behavioral science and joined the college in town for her doctoral program.She now taught college students.
The topic she has chosen for her thesis was Rape-causes and consequences.
She vowed she would do all she could to prevent this incident from happening to other youngsters.
But first she would get over the fear,of course she had to go back to where it all happened.
Armed with a post graduation degree in social welfare,with a government grant that enabled her to staff housing in a decent locality and a car with a lady driver as guide,she arrived at the village the family had fled from almost fifteen years ago.Not much had changed,there were a few street lights,some more stores and tourist houses but it all was as she remembered.
The local temple seemed the meeting ground where the entire village visited at least once daily,she decided to seek blessings of the goddess who she had frantically called to save her on that fateful day.
Well she had been rescued.
In an effort to wipe out the past ,she realized she had all but forgotten him,or maybe she just felt too abject to face him as he had witnessed her ordeal.
He was there at the temple hands folded in prayer following the aarti.
She looked again and noticed he had only a slight gait,had filled out,was tall,handsome and dignified.
Turning around,he bent down and held out his hand to a little child of four.
They walked around the temple premises ,collected the offerings and walked out to the entrance where she stood.
Recognition dawned as their eyes met.
She held the other hand of the sweet moppet and they walked out to the shade of the huge banyan tree where the child saw her friends and danced away to join them.
Anna,I want to thank you for saving me,she began.
Soon they talked about how they had embraced life and moved on.
He had struggled with school life,topped the exams,earned a deree in Mechanical Engineering.
Now he was employed by a multinational Company in a senior capacity.
The little girl was the daughter of his boss who was at the hospital as they were expecting their second baby,he was on his way to drop off the child after offering prayers for the family well being.
She filled him in on her family details.
They met that evening,walked down the same path and quietly re-lived the agonizing moments.
Surprisingly there was no shame or fear but a sense of quiet acceptance.Their lives had changed and they had moved on each a better person for having been through it .A look of understanding ,realization that they were meant for each other and a complete surrender to the miracle healing and working of the Almighty,they held hands and walked away to face their life together.
A dew drop?
A tear drop?
A drop of moisture -a tear of Nature...
She tells a story of water that has been evaporated from a clothesline,that dries off the skirt of a thirteen year old who had been forcefully abducted as she was walking home from school.
Her parents were farm laborers and did not even know of her plight..three men gang raped her and discarded her when they heard the siren of a police van-she was hurt,bleeding,scared and left for dead.
The lame, polio stricken boy, a social outcast as he was considered useless as a farm hand due to his affliction,dragged her to the lake.
Helped her bathe,washed her clothes,dressed her with it again and took her back to the hovel,a thatched dwelling ,that she knew as home.
.Ashamed to even tell her poverty stricken family and unwilling to add to their misery,she lay abjectly on the bundle of hay,wondering what life had in store for her.
A thought suddenly had her sitting up.
They will be back soon,weary,dirty, bone tired after 12 hours of hard work in the merciless sun.
She dragged herself to the dirt mud shaped kiln,fed some logs and started the fire to boil water for gruel with a fistful of rice,some crushed pepper.basil and whatever she had collected on her way to school before the hurtful incident.
She recollected her mother soothing the neighbors ten year old who was with child and her pitiful wails as her frail body was too malnourished for child bearing.Fearing the same fate she vowed to tell her story and find out how to prevent that pitiful state so a repeat of what had happened today could be avoided.
Gathered around the small shed ,after washing away the days sweat and toil,her father proudly asked her to teach the family her lessons.She gamely retold the alphabets, numbers,the stories,colors ,names of plants and vegetables.Soon they retired for the day, her father and brother snoring loudly.
Her stomach hurt ,the torn and mangled privates also bled,she crept to her mother and in sobs told the story.Not a word in reply,her mother applied a paste of turmeric and mehendi leaves,made her drink a vile concoction that made her stomach heave ,she felt her whole body begin to shiver and shake and soon lost consciousness.
The warmth of sunlight soothed her body,she was spent and drained but felt cleansed.
Drinking the watery gruel,she felt tears well up when the family ,who had packed their meager belongings were ready to move on to the next village in hopes of employment.
Mother had somehow convinced them the need to relocate.
Recalling that her teacher was from the nearby town she directed the family there.
Soon they traced the family,spoke of the recommendation.The couple housed,fed,and gave them a place to sleep.The huge house had a worn look,was shabby and ill maintained,her father and brother soon started repairing the broken door,the stairs,the roof while she helped her mother sweep,dust,clean and spruce up the run down house.
The old couple seemed happy and asked them to stay on.The land was vast and fields stretched for acres on either side.The foreman was old and sick so unable to control the field hands who took advantage and neglected farm work.Stepping up to the task father soon streamlined the workforce,specified the work to be done,repaired the water supply sprinklers,fed the cattle,milked the cows,collected eggs, memded fences.
The family endeared themselves to the couple,who heaved a sigh of relief.
They stayed on,the only stipulation was the children had to attend school.
Scared and fearful she refused but her mother walked with her and waited all day outside weaving grass into lovely handbags and deftly making mats and spreads.
The teacher,impressed by her skills requested she teach them to the children.
Soon mother and daughter attended school together , trekking to and from the house to the small school building.The land around was soon put to use as her father and brother started building the walls.
theAll children helped build the extension so they would not have to sit in the hot sun,the walls were of bamboo that helped keep the hot air out yet provided much needed ventilation and sunlight.Rainy season was no more a dread as they used bamboo thatches and coconut/ palm leaves to keep the water out.
Her brother set up a repair shop which was sorely needed,as cycles,watches,household gadgets all needed repair.
They soon belonged here,a respected family that worked so diligently and soon carved a niche for themselves in the society.
She graduated two years later and the elderly couple blessed her and gifted her the pavadi /dhavani set made of pure pattu.Hair adorned with beautiful fragrant jasmine,forehead smeared with chandanam and kumkumam,she looked so angelic and heart touchingly innocent and beautiful that there was a demand for her hand in marriage.
She was wise and with the support of her parents continued education,earned a degree in behavioral science and joined the college in town for her doctoral program.She now taught college students.
The topic she has chosen for her thesis was Rape-causes and consequences.
She vowed she would do all she could to prevent this incident from happening to other youngsters.
But first she would get over the fear,of course she had to go back to where it all happened.
Armed with a post graduation degree in social welfare,with a government grant that enabled her to staff housing in a decent locality and a car with a lady driver as guide,she arrived at the village the family had fled from almost fifteen years ago.Not much had changed,there were a few street lights,some more stores and tourist houses but it all was as she remembered.
The local temple seemed the meeting ground where the entire village visited at least once daily,she decided to seek blessings of the goddess who she had frantically called to save her on that fateful day.
Well she had been rescued.
In an effort to wipe out the past ,she realized she had all but forgotten him,or maybe she just felt too abject to face him as he had witnessed her ordeal.
He was there at the temple hands folded in prayer following the aarti.
She looked again and noticed he had only a slight gait,had filled out,was tall,handsome and dignified.
Turning around,he bent down and held out his hand to a little child of four.
They walked around the temple premises ,collected the offerings and walked out to the entrance where she stood.
Recognition dawned as their eyes met.
She held the other hand of the sweet moppet and they walked out to the shade of the huge banyan tree where the child saw her friends and danced away to join them.
Anna,I want to thank you for saving me,she began.
Soon they talked about how they had embraced life and moved on.
He had struggled with school life,topped the exams,earned a deree in Mechanical Engineering.
Now he was employed by a multinational Company in a senior capacity.
The little girl was the daughter of his boss who was at the hospital as they were expecting their second baby,he was on his way to drop off the child after offering prayers for the family well being.
She filled him in on her family details.
They met that evening,walked down the same path and quietly re-lived the agonizing moments.
Surprisingly there was no shame or fear but a sense of quiet acceptance.Their lives had changed and they had moved on each a better person for having been through it .A look of understanding ,realization that they were meant for each other and a complete surrender to the miracle healing and working of the Almighty,they held hands and walked away to face their life together.
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