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