Love And Lies Are Red

4

There was a kind of hope in their hearts. A beginning had started for them, and they knew only discipline needed to be put at every path of their struggle. Arshia was accepted into the college of her choice, and the mother-daughter duo came home, fluttering through the streets like butterflies. Tasha gave her a delightful treat at a side vendor, including many of her favourite spicy snacks and cans of carbonated drinks. After they had crushed the beverage-cans and thrown away the paper plates, they embarked on a rickshaw back to home. As the house came in their line of sight, their smiling faces slowly started to fade away.

They alighted right in front of the main door, where Pragati was standing with her arms folded and face dead serious. Tasha asked Arshia to spend her day somewhere else, even though she had promised to play chess with her. Arshia clasped her mother's hands tightly and looked worriedly into her eyes. Tasha caressed her cheek and embraced her tightly to her bosom.
"Don't be ever afraid of anything. You always have to move forward. You are Tasha Aithwal's daughter, and you will have a grand name some day! Go beta, play with your friends. I will be waiting for you", she said to her and bid her away. Arshia kept turning her head to see if Pragati would try treating her mother harshly again. She did not want to see all that anyway, but her mother getting harmed was unbearable for her. Even if she had gotten used to it.
Tasha thought Pragati would move aside and continue her ugly stare at her, but she did not give her way into the house.
Astonished, Tasha looked up at her questioningly. As Pragati moved aside, Tasha faced Ghanendra's large stature standing out in the darkness of their hall, like a dreadful demon. Tasha was pulled into the house with utter force and the door was slammed hard, cutting her helplessness from the world outside.

She had a few rupees left with her as her mother's purse stayed in her hands. Her college form went away with Tasha to home, and she was present all alone at their usual rendezvous, that dingy basement. And Nuthvik was nowhere to be seen. The more she stared at the blank dust-laden walls, the faster her life film ran in front of her eyes. What must be happening with her mother at home? She couldn't contact her mother because her phone was at home, but she was told to enjoy her day. So she looked out for him at the company where he worked, and there she spotted him. A slender boy whose every muscle definition was visible with the grease smeared all over his body. His white Amul vest had almost blackened away, and he was continuously wiping the sweat off his forehead while fixing some parts of a car with a large wrench. Arshia admired his hard work from a distance and wished if only he had listened to her once, and tried to find a better job which did not make him work like a donkey day and night. Nuthvik spotted her staring at him, and Arshia gave him a smile. His countenance turned grumpy, probably to shoo her away from being seen by the other men working along with him. Not because he wanted to keep her safe, but because he thought that every man had a mind like him. He signalled her to have patience, and passed his incomplete task to his buddy. All his mate thought looking at him quickly cleaning his body and running towards Arshia that, some day, he will surely lose his life in this so-called love.

"You belong to that very place from where your husband picked you up!", Ghanendra spat all his disrespectful words at her. Tasha kept weeping on the floor, lying in a poor state of despair. Her tear stained face and wrinkled clothes spoke ten times the voice that she kept hidden in her little heart. Not a word of her prayer struck their eardrums.
"We gave you enough means to live sufficiently, but you seem to have stabbed us in the back very nicely", Pragati grabbed her wrist hardly, in an attempt to make her speak. When she nodded her head in no, Tasha had to get her cheeks stung one more time by the burtal slaps. She wondered if her daughter was to come home and see all that going on, would she also blame her the same way like Rafeen had witnessed something similar years ago? And that was why she had to be married away quickly to zip her mouth up completely.
"Why would I steal money from your bank? I don't even have the details!", Tasha said, trying to get up but Pragati shouted at her to stay motionless.
"That is why you took so long to clean my room, no? All that 'I am cleaning it thoroughly' was an excuse!", Pragati's hair bun came off as she banged her feet on the floor with anger. None of them heard Tasha's pleadings that she had not stolen money to pay Arshia's fees.
"Then where did the sum come from to pay your bastard daughter's fees?", Pragati asked dramatically, to which Ghanendra replied,
"Let me show where it came from..", and then he slapped a slip on her face, that read that twenty thousand rupees had been extracted from his account.
And the withdrawing account was of Wasim Aithwal, that only Tasha had access to.