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Womb Rent

By Sharda Gupta


They came with contracts, not lullabies,


measured my uterus in centimeters,


and called it kindness—


that I, with cracked heels and a hungry husband,


could carry a stranger’s heir


for twenty-five thousand rupees a month.



No one asked


if I dreamed of holding my child


after the push,


or if I wept when I bled


for someone else’s joy.



They called it “surrogacy,”


as if I were a substitute teacher,


filling in until the real mother arrived


in her perfume and foreign accent.



They injected hormones into my thighs


like love notes from a man I’d never meet.


I swelled—


not with hope,


but with leased life.


I whispered prayers into my belly


knowing I wouldn’t be allowed


to kiss the forehead I grew.



My name disappeared


from the birth certificate.


The baby cried, but not for me.


I was paid.


Told to rest.


Told to be grateful


for the hospital bed


and the air-conditioned ward.



But how does one evict


a soul that lived inside you?


I walked home,


hands empty,


womb hollow like a room once loved.


My own children didn’t understand


why I was too tired


to hug them that night.



This body—


a shrine, they said.


But shrines burn incense,


not contracts.



And now I wait,


for another woman’s child


to stir inside me again—


not for love,


but for rent.


By Sharda Gupta

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