Deep Seated Scars

Deep Seated Scars

5 mins
271


The stench was overpowering. Unwashed bodies lying skin to skin, packed like a can of sardines. I needed to empty my bladder, the pressure becoming unbearable. How do I extricate myself from this human mass, without stirring my bedfellows? Like a cat on four paws, I raised myself, crawling backwards, out from the threadbare 'duree' which served as my bed. My feet encountering the cold stone floor sent shock waves through my frail body. A few more steps would reach me to the toilet bowl tucked away in a corner. Clogged with blood-soaked rags, dried feces, a stained bowl overflowing with human waste! Beggars can't be choosers, so I had to relieve myself into this hell hole, unashamedly. Doing acrobatics simultaneously in an attempt to ward of the cockroaches crawling over my feet. It was then that I noticed the iron door left ajar, just a few inches. There were no lurking shadows of the hefty women on rotation, standing guard. Perhaps they too had gone to relieve themselves, though likely in a more hygienic facility. 

The thin light streaming into the room from under the doorway, germinated the seed that was planted a long time ago. "Escape!” it screamed at me! Day and night, it was my singular thought, fashioning out ideas on routes and methods. It was now or never! I tip toed on the icy stone floor reaching the iron bars in less than ten seconds, holding my breath all the while. Built of small frame, that had further shrunk due to lack of nutrition, both physical and mental, squeezing through that small gap was easy enough. Did I hear shuffling of feet close by? No. Must be the rustling of leaves, stirred by the wind blowing from an easterly direction. Pitch dark outside! I stood facing the compound wall embedded with shards of broken glass, glinting like those cheap American diamonds. I would have to scale that wall, at the risk of my hands and legs getting slashed. It was certainly worth a shot. Though those scars would not compare to the mental scars left from my childhood.

Plucking up courage, I stepped out into the open courtyard, skirting outside the lighted areas from overhead lamp posts. Dismissing negative thoughts that were coming in waves, I headed straight towards the fruit laden Ber tree, standing close to the wall, its branches hanging over the walled fence. Grazing my hands and knees, I reached for the highest branch spreading outwards over the wall. A crackling sound sent jitters up my spine. Before the branch would give way under my weight, I shut my eyes and leaped into the bottomless darkness, arms flailing, hair slapping against my face, as I landed on my behind. It was a soft landing on a bed of cow dung piled high. Never mind that I was covered in brown gooey paste head to toe. A camouflage that would leave me unnoticed! Freedom never tasted so good!

Two years in the women's correctional institute had not blunted my faculties in any way. I was determined to intercept what fate had doled out. Running through the sugarcane fields, like a prey being chased, I reached the single railway track skirting the village. I must have been running, sprinting, for eternity, as I collapsed on a grassy slope overlooking the railway lines. Chugging, and grinding of metal on metal, two sharp beams of light piercing the darkness, drawing closer, lifted me from my stupor. My mind demanded action, but my body resisted. A goods train was approaching. Two fortuitous happenings in a single night. I kept watching for an open wagon to take refuge. The wait seemed interminable! Or so I imagined. The seventh wagon rolled in, with a huge yawning gap where the door should have been. Was my mind playing tricks? I wasn't convinced till I was sitting amongst the cattle riding on that wagon. They seemed to empathize with me, cow dung covered human occupying space with the bovine species.

Events of my sordid past came rushing back! My mother often repeating the story of how when I was merely a three-month infant, she had left me on the 'charpai' in the open courtyard on a freezing cold winter night, to rush her twin sons to hospital for medical treatment, leaving me unattended for six hours. She had forgotten about her girl child. Didn't she care of the effects of hypothermia on an infant? And she had no qualms in sharing this with her “taash” playing friends. Nor mentioning that her girl had survived. As though she secretly wished otherwise.

And when she slipped and broke her legs, the twins made her life hell. Too much to bear the burden of caring for an aged mother, they conspired to get rid of her speedily. Who should be the easiest target to blame?

Post mortem report read murdered with rat poison. The contents of the bottle poured down the nasogastric tubes, snaking into her stomach. The emptied bottle shoved under my bed. Brilliant brainwave of blaming the death of our mother, accusing me of poisoning her. Motive as simple as revenge for abandoning a helpless infant that bone chilling cold winter night.

Brothers and their spouses had staged the crime scene with a bottle of rat poison planted in my room. The cops had fallen for it hook, line and sinker, and I was arrested, handcuffed and taken to the correctional center for women, far away from civilization.

Those deep-seated scars will never fade. Will remain visible through the folds of sagging skin that old age will bring. But at least I can now assume a new identify, a new beginning, abandoning the ugliness of my past. With this hope I sank into deep slumber comforted by the animal udders brushing my face!


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