It Hurts To Be Precious

By Surabhi Sharma

What makes something precious?

Price……..Or priceless!!

The country of Azad has three states: Auratgarh, Mardgarh and Sabzipur. Mardgarh being the oldest whereas Auratgarh the newest. Mardgarh referring to the bastion of the males was one of the largest states till 2000 when it was bifurcated to form Auratgarh. A state where there are more hookah and liquor shops than essentials, Mardgarh has always belonged to the men. A land of men, for men and by men. Women can exist there but only if like obedient bodies they fall into three categories: wives, daughters and the fallen. The fallen women being the most despised in public but the most revered in private while the wives, the most revered in public but violated each day, every moment behind the four walls of their domesticity. 

In the late 2000’s, 5 women having been forced to sleep with their husband’s friends, took on the men of Mardgarh like an army. They would have been butchered neatly and disposed of before anyone could count the pieces of flesh making up the contours of their body, had it not been for a female journalist on an assignment to Mardgarh who wrote about the hidden underground railroads of prostitution, forced sex with more than one man, domestic violence and marital rape. Pressure began mounting from the international community who was forced to pay attention after the article reached the International Council of Women Rights. Desperate to save its face and trade and evade all kinds of sanctions, Azad gave permission to the division of Mardgarh, but not before 7 months of endless protests with placards of A State for Women.  The women of Mardgarh, majority of whom had run away from their houses and joined the protest were granted a state that was said to have been equally divided on paper but was no bigger than the size of a pear sandwiched between Mardgarh and Sabzipur. The Central Government of Azad had been very sure that Auratgarh’s economy would shrink like clothes washed in hot water but owing to the courage and hard work of the women who were migrating to settle there in numbers, it continued to stay afloat and even managed to swim comfortably in many quarters. Though women were still allowed to live in Mardgarh as well as men in Auratgarh, they had no legal rights on the gender in whose land they were residing.

Sabzipur, on the other hand, was an exception. The state got its name from the whooping cultivation of varieties of vegetables and fruits in the vast tracts of mysteriously fertile land aided by the water from the Mehnati river which originated there but dried up before reaching the other states. Sabzipur was the biggest revenue generator for Azad owing to the tonnes of rice, wheat, millet, corn, potatoes, onions, brinjals, cabbages, tomatoes, cauliflower, jackfruit, corn, pumpkins…(to name a few) and cultivations of oranges, mangoes, bananas, at the top, that were traded both domestically and globally.

The partition of Mardgarh brought about an unwanted perceptible partition for Sabzipur; one that redefined the roles of the two genders and relegated girls as a precious commodity. Men from Mardgarh who couldn’t find a consort for themselves through the underground prostitution networks started eyeing young girls of Sabzipur. In the years from 2000-2002, a whooping 67% of rapes led the council of Sabzipur to petition the Central Government to find a solution. 

After much deliberation, in 2003, a law led to the establishment of the Haveli which was to signify an institution responsible for the registry of the girls born each month,their parents, their house, the area under the family cultivation, agricultural revenue and other sources of income. It was also to assess the threats to the girls from the ‘outside’ men and provide income support to stop the selling or forcing of girls into the dark underground world of prostitution. 

But……… in just a few years, the Haveli which was supposed to be an institution of righteousness and protection, transformed into a monster who came in the garb of a big black mustache arched like domes of erstwhile dynasties and a White Dhoti.

But this story is not about the white dhotis or the monsters. 

It is about women.

Women who always have to give up something; only that this something means their all.

***

It was a typical morning in Sabzipur. The sound of the vegetable sellers rose from the markets like chants from a temple. Fresh vegetables were laid on blue and yellow tarpaulins. Despite being the highest contributor to Azad’s GDP, Sabzipur’s 70% population belonged to the rural household, many who barely managed above the poverty line.

A milky white skinned girl with beautiful, smiling chestnut brown eyes, freckles on the mound of her nose, hair braided in two long ponytails flanking the sides of her ears, kohl perfectly lining the lower rim of her eyes and wearing an orange frock with golden hems and worn out greasy blue slippers, was standing at one of the stalls intoning in a crisp voice brinjals 40 a kg potatoes 30 a kg cheapest onions 100 a kg…Complementary green chili and lemons. If the girl’s mother had been there, she would have gotten an earful for the complementary offer but at the moment, she wasn’t there and later it would not matter as long as there was significant sale to compensate for it. Her mother had gone to work in the White Dhoti’s house to ensure that the family did not have to sleep empty stomach, which, in reality, seemed a bit unfair because the only people who ever slept hungry were the girl and her mother.

“Amma, see how much I sold today,” the girl exclaimed, revealing the rectangular sheets of papers and the clinking coins in the rusted iron box as her mother neared the stall in a haggard and breathless condition. 

“Put this aside…….. First tell me, why did you not go to school, Mani?” The girl’s eyes which uptil now had been smiling, turned towards the moist brown ground scanning the dust through the microscopes of her eye lens.

“Amma……I …..I wanted to….help.” 

The girl had barely managed to utter a few words before Mani’s mother, a skinny, pale, black-eyed woman, with white skin like the girl, disheveled hair silver at the roots and blouse slightly torn at the right shoulder revealing a sliver of her black bra strap, clasped Mani’s cheeks tightly with her hand that smelled heavily of detergents as did her whole body that reeked of phenol and the White Dhoti’s special alcohol. 

“Did I not tell you to forget about the stall and go to school……. Where is Baba?” In any other situation, Mani would have lied that Nathu, her father, was working in the fields but in the current situation, it was too big a risk. Basanti’s eyes were on fire, most probably because the White Dhoti had yet again made the ‘offer’ and she had yet again felt like smashing the bottle of alcohol on his slick, neatly parted, well-oiled hair.

The ‘offer’ was something Nathu and Basanti fought over almost each night. What exactly was this offer which produced so much chaos in her house, Mani had no idea. From the last one year, the ‘offer’ had been discussed quite often and the mention of her name had led Mani to conclude that it was somehow certainly related to her.

“Baba is slee…” Mani tried answering, still glued to her place with downcast eyes, but Basanti was in no mood for lies. “We are done here. Help me gather the vegetables and come home with me. Then be off to school for the second half. Got it?”

It would have been useless protesting so Mani gave in and began gathering the fallen potatoes, rolling the tarpaulin and helping Basanti put them in the bamboo basket.

The school Mani went to was an all girls school that had been started in 2004 after the implicit partition of Sabzipur had made the differences between men and women greatly distinct. It was a deal of comfort between the upper classes of Sabzipur, who lived in the affluent heart of the state, and the Haveli, that as long as their girls were not involved in any of the ‘offers’, they would maintain a blind eye to the Haveli’s actions.

Despite it being an all- girls school and all its teachers being female, calling it a temple of education felt a sham to Mani. It was rare for a teacher to come to the class. The principal was hardly seen except on days when the White Dhoti was to come for an inspection. On such days, the girls were ordered to wear new frocks, particularly gaudy colored ones that were above their knees. They were instructed to let their hair loose and put on red lipsticks, lots of rogue and white powders; like they were ghosts in reincarnation. Though the Haveli had been established for the girls of the entire Sabzipur, the ‘partition’ meant it spread its fangs in the villages only.

While Basanti was walking with the bamboo basket atop her head, Mani couldn’t help but study her mother from the back. It was in the last one year since Mani turned 13 that everything had changed around her, both in her house and her surroundings. An invisible petite girl now found herself utterly visible to the eyes of strangers. Even the people in her own neighborhood had started looking at her in a despised manner but the one person who had changed dramatically was her mother. An ever smiling, soft spoken woman had transformed into a mother elephant. Earlier she allowed Mani to go to the neighborhood milkman but now except going to the school, Mani wasn’t allowed to be roaming aimlessly in the gullies. She had been friends with a girl who was two years younger to her but since turning 12, the girl’s mother had forbidden Mani from being seen around her daughter.

As Basanti and Mani neared their hut, they could see women dressed in red sarees and red bangles for the age-old tradition of the village where women prayed and circled 11 times around the Peepal tree dressed in red, praying for the health and happiness of their husbands and sons. Basanti looked at those women with hatred and disgust, pursed her lips so hard that she almost bit their sides and fastened her steps against her body’s wish. Cannot fight the White dhoti so pray for the safer option or bundle your own child in rags and drown it or trade it. How can they kill their own child and sleep in peace? 

Basanti had been lost in thoughts when a woman’s voice tore through her train of hatred. Though the women pretended to be speaking among themselves, it was fairly evident from their pitch that it was meant for Basanti to hear.“Thank God I have two sons. Some of us do good karmas to be blessed like this,” one woman said, stealing glances at Basanti who wanted to sprint but her frail body was unable to bear the weight of the basket. “To be honest, even if I had a daughter, I wouldn’t have wasted my own money on her school and clothes. I would have simply handed her and been done with the job.”

Only if you had not killed her before she drew her first breath, Basanti angrily muttered to herself. Mani who had been walking behind her mother, heard all that the women spoke along with their distasteful smiles. She could feel Basanti’s muscle tense despite not being able to see the ferociousness in her eyes.

Mani’s hut was located at the extreme end of the village but they hadn’t always stayed there. 3 years ago, they stayed in a kutcha house quite close to the mandi but now they lived in the neighborhood with the girls around Mani’s age, all of whom, except Mani, worked in the Haveli. 

***

The hut plastered with cow dung cakes on its four exterior walls and washed with fresh cow dung paste each day at the entrance, had one modestly sized room which had been partitioned into two quarters with one of Basanti’s black saree. In the room facing the entrance, was a mud chulha and in the same room, a cot had been put up for Nathu and Magan to sleep while Mani slept with Basanti on the other side of the partition, on a thin mat. 

As Basanti and Mani entered the house, they saw Nathu lying on the bed, heavily drunk. Seeing them enter, he approached Mani with clumsy steps and a body stinking with alcohol. Before she could back away, he grabbed her left arm like a machete, “Kalmoohi, all this is happening because of you. You have turned us into beggars. Everyone spits on the ground where I stand. How comfortably we used to live, now just look at our condition!!!.......Worse than beggars. People rarely if ever want to buy anything from us. If this goes on, we will very soon die because of you.”

Nathu had been a muscularly built man in his 20’s, plowing the fields, sowing, weeding, harvesting in the scorching sun with sweat dripping from his forehead and his sweat soaked biceps glistening in the rays of the sun but his will had died the day Mani was born. After the birth of Mani and the path taken by his wife in his defiance, his body constituted more alcohol than water. Some days he would scream at Basanti but on many more he would simply drag her by her hair on the cot and the children behind the partition would hear the muffled cries of their mother when the jute rope hit its target. But more than anything else, there would be days when the cot shook vigorously with vibrations of stifled moans of a woman traveling through the solid ground.

Despite the cylindrical area on her arm getting red, Mani was intently studying Nathu’s face. He had a complexion darkened by the sun, a Pinnochio style nose and a scar due to a sickle accident that ran just inches below his right eye to the entire right side of his face. Time had healed the wound only to amplify the rusted texture of the scars. Rani mausi, her mother’s childhood friend, liked to joke that Basanti had conceived Mani all on her own because except her dark brown eyes, there was no feature or mark that could work as a similarity between her father and Mani….……Just then she felt a force of another hand on her arm and saw Basanti using all her strength to throw away Nathu.

“You bastard!! Don’t you dare blame her. Our land was taken because of you. Have you forgotten the endless loans from the sahukar?...... As for the crops, you have rarely gone to work in the last one year. All you do is drink with your drunkard friends and play cards and that lazy son of yours spends his time like you; smoking hookah and chasing girls. It’s me who works in the fields and then at the hav…… houses. If Mani wouldn’t take these vegetables to the market, we wouldn’t even earn a penny for them. For months, we haven’t had good produce. Somehow I manage to keep the produce from perishing by sprinkling water on them each day.”

“You ziddi woman!!....... Why don’t you tell her about the Haveli and what we are having to bear because of her. Why don’t you accept the ‘offer’? We will not get our respect back but at least we won’t die from an empty stomach. How long do you think you can keep her away from Him?”

Basanti felt her legs turn rickety. She wanted to succumb to the floor but somehow managed to look at Mani, “Go to the school. Take the long route from Rani Mausi’s house and wait for me after the school gets over.” Mani was still quivering but she dragged her feet out of the house. Once out, she ran like being chased by mad bulls.

“I told you never to use that word in front of her,” Basanti shouted, tucking the loose end of her sari in the bunch near the abdomen, clearly ready for an all out fight.

“How does my saying or not saying make a difference? Don’t you think she hears about it in the school or in the markets?..... You foolish woman!! Why can’t you see that you are doing her no good by withholding the truth. Her future was written for all to see, the day you fought me to not drown her. Why are you being adamant even now?...... Give her away and we can be at peace. Look at Vidur, Mochi, Ramlakhan, Pitam, haven’t they all given up their daughters and are living in peace?” Nathu’s tone for once sounded pleading instead of angry or violent.

“They are Rama, Kanta, Sheila and Lavni’s daughters……...Your children? What exactly did you do to deserve them? Just came home drunk and stuck up your…….that thing…..inside us.”

Nathu who had cooled down a little grew horribly outrageous when he heard Basanti insult his manhood. “You bitch….. Don’t forget that you are my wife. I am saying this for the last time. Just give away that girl and let me live. Maybe if the Haveli is considerate, they will ask only for weekend service.”

“MANI…..Say her name…...Her name is Mani and she is my daughter. Do the hell you want to. I did not carry her for 9 months inside me to offer her to that dog.” 

***

13 years ago, when Mani had been inside Basanti, she had dreamt of a daughter each day. While the old ladies of the village gave her blessings for a boy and Nathu was slogging in the fields in the excitement of another son, Basanti had an incomplete image of her daughter in her heart. She knew even then that she was wishing for a catastrophe. That even if she was somehow able to save her daughter, 12 years hence, it wasn’t a certainty if she could still be with her. She had been unsure about her courage to fight but when she had held a wobbly fleshed Mani for the first time,smiling like she couldn’t have been more blissful to be a new member of this cruel world, a mother’s newly broken heart had decided that every ounce of her breath would now be for protecting the largest piece of her heart; her daughter.

All the while Basanti had been lost in the bittersweet memory of Mani’s birth, Nathu had stormed off the house. Her temples were throbbing and she knew she needed to let out her caged cries.

***

Rani’s pucca house was located near the mandi because her husband owned a large field and had a significantly high yield. It would be fair to say that since last year, in the light of failed crops, Basanti had been able to keep her family alive courtesy to the money that Rani took from her husband to spend on clothes but purchasing cheap ones for herself, secretly gave a large share to Basanti.

The warmth of the day was giving way to the chill of the November night. Basanti had been avoiding her weakening health for months but now after barely having walked ten steps, she started experiencing fits of coughing with chills shooting like electric currents in her body.

***

The all-girls school Mani went to, had 4 classes according to age brackets: 4-6, 7-9, 10-12,13-15. The last bracket was pretty much a waste because a teacher never made an appearance, besides, many of the girls in them were already employed in the Haveli.

The girls in Mani’s class appeared like ghosts to her with their eyes invariably downturned, pale anemic skin and eyeballs a little loose for their sockets. Despite always putting on their lipsticks and powders, they looked like they were dead inside. Lajo was the only one in the class who seemed like all the energy sucked from the other 6 girls had been planted inside her. She was small in height with a dark complexion and hips jutting out unevenly from her body. She wore blood red lipstick and frocks of eye-catching colors that did not extend beyond her black knees, while her hair was casually braided in two neat plaits with neon coloured plastic rubber bands. Mani knew that Lajo worked in the Haveli on the weekends as did the other 6 girls who hardly ever uttered a word.

“Lajo...listen….can you tell me about the Hav…?” Mani had not even spelled the entire word before Lajo, giving her an understanding nod, completed the sentence, “Haveli?”

Lajo’s face dimmed in a smile, the faintest that could ever be imagined. “I don’t get why your Amma hasn’t yet told you about it. You are the only one among us who still does not work in any way. It’s not like you can escape it forever. My Amma says the sooner

you start, the better. After all, people will not see or treat you any differently. So it’s better if you can work and earn some money for your family.”

“What do you mean ‘in any way’? Are there different types of works?”

“Buddhu.. Yes. Seth Sahab decides everything.”

“Seth Sahab?”

“Are you really this dumb?”

“I...don’t…”

“Forget it. Seth Sahab is the White Dhoti man who lives in the Haveli. I don’t know his name. Amma says I am not supposed to know that but he looks somewhat over 50 years old. I do whatever he tells me to. All the girls of age 12 or above have to work in the Haveli under the ‘offer’. When they turn 18, they are married to a person that Seth Sahab decides but that is only in name. We keep working for Seth Sahab all our lives, till we turn old enough to not be of any use. We can sleep with our legal husband and bear their children but our children, especially girls will have to continue the tradition of working for Seth Sahab and his sons.”

“What sort of work do we have to do?........And why do Nazma, Lalli, Peetu live there while you and the others in our class do not?”

“As I said before, there are different kinds of work and depending on those works you either stay in the Haveli or work only on the weekends. The first work is with….. Seth Sahab in the….room at night. I don’t know in great detail about that work. Seth Sahab just looked at me the first time and said that I was to work only on weekends. I have to massage his body. He lies naked on the bed and I give him a coconut oil massage. I also clean the rooms, change the sheets, wash the utensils and broom the tiled entryway and the orchards. As for the other girls in our class, they also do the same thing but they massage the Madam, Seth Sahab’s wife and his old mother. But sometimes Seth Sahab also takes them with him at night. I have heard some voices at night like the screaming of a mad woman or the panting of a dog.”

Lajo felt her throat go dry. Meanwhile Mani was sitting motionless like someone being electrocuted, with few visible hairs on her white skin standing erect.

“How does Seth Sahab decide who should stay in the Haveli and who should work on the weekends?”

“It depends on his mood. He has a taste for beautiful girls. He rarely takes someone dark like me to the room. He wants white, rosy cheeks and pink lips at night. But it also depends on what happens inside the room….. See Kavu there….. isn’t she beautiful but Nazma told me that Seth Sahab did not like her service at night, so he told her to work only on weekends. It’s actually better this way. But.. you…you are…fair….and…..beautiful….I think…..” Mani did not let Lajo complete as she picked up her bag and ran mindlessly into the stinking gullies outside.

***

Rani was sitting under the Jamun tree savoring the taste of a few fallen Jamun when she saw Basanti approaching. Rani, an olive complexion woman with her hair neatly parted from the center where a neatly fitting line of vermillion lay, had been a party in keeping Nathu from drowning Mani three days after her birth but had not been able to save her own daughter from the same fate.

“Did you come to know anything about it?” Basanti asked Rani in breathless desperation.

“I tried but couldn’t gather much. The rates are different for both girls and women.”

“Is it difficult to get there on a personal vehicle?”

“Yes, you will get stopped at the border and they will demand the resident cards which are needed for identity. The smugglers have deals with the border guards, so it's easier that way.”

When Mani had been three months short of turning 12, Basanti saw a golden opportunity to save her daughter and give her a life that would have nothing to do with the Haveli and its lifelong condemning monstrosity. She decided to find a way to get her daughter inside Auratgarh. But Auratgarh being a state where only women had the legal rights, had many border restrictions. Men were allowed to come in for work purposes only or if they had chosen to live there with their wives and daughters but they did not possess any legal rights. A few years ago, Auratgarh had brought in a new law which made rules stringent for women coming from the other two states. Due to a staggering migration of women and a burden of overpopulation, women from the other two states had to apply for an asylum which took years to be granted. This gave rise to illegal smuggling where smugglers took huge sums in exchange for transportation and fake resident cards.Being a state with a soul(a rarity), Auratgarh found itself unable to detain women who had made their way in its space.

It was getting cold and dark and Basanti had to pick up Mani from school. As she straightened her legs, greenish-yellow bloody mucus ejected from her mouth and she lay on the ground clutching her chest for air.

***

There were no doctors at the hospital but a nurse administered some antibiotics, two of which Rani realized were expired. There was no point admitting her to the hospital so she brought Basanti home but Nathu did not allow Rani inside the house. She hurled a few abuses at him but when he did not relent, gave him money with a warning to use it only for Basanti.

Mani did not know how long she had stayed holed up in the gaushala but when she saw the moon shining milky bright in the night sky, she knew Basanti would have taken the entire school by storm.

Hardly two steps away from her house, a strange silence seemed to gnaw at Mani’s heart. She found Basanti lying on the cot with a light quilt with holes in it and a heap of sticks burning in a black semi-circle utensil. As she took a step towards her, Nathu held her hand and dragged her out of the house.

“Amma, what……?” Her tears were choking her but he gave them no consideration.

“Look girl, your Amma has a disease and we need money for the doctor, otherwise she will die….. Do you want to help her or not?” 

“I will do anything for Amma……. I will sell the vegetables and bring money.” 

“Selling vegetables will take days to earn enough. She will not even survive tomorrow. There is a much quicker way but only you can do that……. Tell me will you do it to save your Amma.”

“Anything for Amma,” Mani answered with a steely resolve and tears gently cascading down her plump cheeks.

“Good girl.” 

Minutes later, they arrived at a huge white mansion with big orchards and marbled exterior walls. The Haveli was much bigger and grander than expected as Mani made her way inside. Incomprehensible paintings of kings and queens, a deer head figurine on the wall, Persian rugs lining every inch of polished marbles and blinding crystal chandeliers, gave the insides a breathtaking look.

***

When Basanti’s fever subsided considerably, she scanned the room but there was no one around. With great effort, she removed the quilt from her body and taking the support of the walls, made her way outside. 

“Why did you come out, can’t you see how cold it is and how weak you have become,” Nathu said as he saw Basanti at the doorstep. 

“Where is Mani?” Basanti asked, her voice barely audible.

“Don’t worry about her,” said Nathu, not meeting her gaze.

The frail, papery-boned Basanti seemed to have been injected with a sudden infusion of  energy. This time in an audible but not loud voice, she repeated, “Where is MANI I asked?”

“Where she should have been long ago,” replied Nathu, still averting his eyes from seeing the shock and dumbfoundedness in Basanti’s. Nathu’s words broke the valve of Basanti’s heart which had years of fear stored in them. 

“YOU DOG….. HOW DARE YOU?” Saying this, she began hitting him with all her strength which wasn’t much but if Magan hadn’t stopped her from smashing the wine bottle on his head, she would have surely killed him.

Basanti rushed out of the house, as fast as her weak legs and coughing fits could manage. Taking the shortest route through the market, she ran with prayer on her lips and a hope that she would find her daughter before the monster.

***

Inside the room with the White Dhoti, Mani stood still for a few minutes. The White Dhoti was a short, pot bellied man, with gray chest hair and a wicked smile on his tanned and grooved face. He beckoned Mani to come closer to him. 

What happened afterwards is something the girl only ever recounted in her sleep. How he clutched her breasts, squeezing them hard like oranges, biting at her nipples as though he would tear them off. How he held out a banana shaped lump and forced her to suck and then sit on it, followed by the excruciating pain which numbed her senses, giving her the illusion of death for a good amount of time………. But for now what the girl felt conscious about was the money in her hands which could buy her mother a life.

After what felt like an eternity of running, when a breathless Basanti reached the gates of the Haveli, she saw Mani coming out through the driveway. When she saw the dark red splotches like a blood moon on the girl’s orange frock lighted up by the sodium yellow street lamp, a large part of her inside broke forever. She held Mani tightly against her bosom, tore the notes in two and threw them in circles at the gate. Then she kissed her daughter’s tears and her forehead and her cheeks in one breath and burst out in a soundless wail.

As the clock struck a new day, a mother and a daughter silently left one world to forge their way into a new better one. A mother gave up all the money she had been saving for 13 years, stole her rightful from the house and set off with her daughter to a land where their future belonged only to them. A place where all the beauty and the terrors would be theirs and theirs alone. No White Dhoti could ever think of possessing their bodies or their souls.

By Surabhi Sharma