Each morning, when she was getting ready for school, she'd hear Meera's voice from the street. It meant that the school bus was five minutes away. Unlike other kids who had to walk to the end of the street as the bus couldn't go inside, Shehla didn't have to get ready before time and wait outside.
So she was always late. Abbu scolded her everyday. He was a short tempered man, always had a scorn on his face.
His day started with telling Meera to go set her shop somewhere else. He said that it garnered unwanted attention to their house.
One day he had come home late at night, drunk and only slept for half an hour, when the sun came up and Meera started her routine.
He took his old cricket bat and smashed her cart with it and dragged her out of the street.
The next day, while getting ready for school, she heard Meera's call again. Abbu got up, went outside and smiled when he saw Meera set up a few houses away.
In the afternoon, Ammi put on her burkha and went to her cart, down the street. This was the farthest away from home she had gone in a while. She took her some food, and they chatted, like they did everyday while Ammi bought fruits and vegetables.
Ammi asked her that day why she picked that spot outside their house. She told her that it was an intersection, people living on all 4 streets around it, and passing through it were all her customers.
Later that night, at the dinner table Abbu asked where she got the vegetables from. She told him that she got them from Meera. He gave her a beating for going outside the house without him.
A few days passed without Ammi stepping outside the house. To keep her company, Abbu decided that Shehla shouldn't go out either. He told her that she was growing up now and must help her mother with the cooking.
In the kitchen she would hear Ammi fuss about Abbu not knowing how to pick vegetables.
After a few weeks they had a visitor. Abbu had said that everything needs to be perfect for him, that he must get whatever he wants. Shehla hadn't seen any dinner like that before. Ammi prepared 5 of her best dishes and brought out the expensive silverware her parents had given her. At the table, the gentleman tried making conversation with all of them, and Abbu would nudge Ammi if she didn't answer. In the middle of this, he commented that the tomatoes she had used seemed to be unripe. Ammi told him that Abbu bought the vegetables in the house, to which he had a good laugh.
She had another beating that night.
Shehla asked her mother once what did she love the most about talking to Meera. She told her that Meera was her escape. She told her about everything that was happening in other households.
She told her once that she is married to a man who assaults her each night and takes money that she had earns to buy alcohol.
She showed her a ring that she never wore, but her husband was too drunk to notice. Ammi would tell her everyday to run away, but she wouldn't.
Shehla spent most of her teenage years learning to cook like her mother. In her last year of high school, Ammi became terminally ill and passed away after 8 months of her diagnosis.
Abbu made Shehla drop out of school, a month before her board exams and promised her to a friend's son.
They were to get married the day she turns 18.
Meera heard about it from the lady in front of whose house she now her cart.
The lady came to see Shehla a week after her engagement, told Abbu that she had brought her an engagement gift.
They sat down and chatted for a while. When Abbu left the room, the lady handed over an envelope to her and left.
She opened it, there was a ring and a letter inside.
"This is the ring that I never wore. Your mother insisted that I sell it and run away. I never had the courage to do it. I hope you do."
YOU ARE READING
Indian Unfolding: Musings Of A Small Town
Short StoryA Collection of Short Stories from Indian Neighborhoods. These are my first works as a writer, short stories that I have written with inspirations from the life I have lived.
