Part 1: The Unspoken

In a small, forgotten village nestled in the heart of Rajasthan, there was a girl whose existence felt like a mistake. Her name was Neha, though no one in her family spoke it with love or pride. From the day she was born, the silence around her felt heavy, as if her arrival had only deepened the cracks already running through her family.

Neha's birth was not a celebrated event—it was one of survival, where her mother fought through the pain, hovering on the edge of life and death. The family prayed, but not for her. They prayed for a son, for someone worthy of attention and care. Neha was not that someone. For three days, she was left alone in a corner, forgotten, her cries blending into the cold stillness of the house.

When they finally remembered her, it was not out of love, but because a doctor had asked. Her grandmother’s face twisted in disappointment—this fragile girl wasn’t the boy they had hoped for. From that moment on, Neha’s life became a quiet battle to be seen, to be loved. But no matter how hard she tried, the love she yearned for never came.

Her father, once a man who looked forward to his children’s future, had turned distant. His dreams seemed to fade the moment he laid eyes on her. As she grew, so did the quiet resentment in the house. Her mother, although the only one who showed Neha some care, was too broken by her own struggles to truly notice how invisible her daughter had become.

When Neha reached the age of five, her father decided to move the family out of the village. They went to Maharashtra, hoping for better opportunities. But for Neha, the change of place didn’t bring a change of heart. She was enrolled in an English-medium school, but the words on the page felt as distant as her father's affection. Her classmates laughed at her mistakes, and she quickly learned what it felt like to be mocked for being different.

She was sent to school with her older sister and younger brother, but even among them, she felt alone. Her sister was smart, the family’s pride, and her brother, the precious boy they had longed for. Neha was the forgotten middle child, the one who seemed to bring only disappointment. Her father’s voice, once gentle, now dripped with frustration whenever he spoke to her. If she struggled with her homework, his temper flared. If her grades were low, she felt the sting of his scorn. And with each failure, Neha's sense of worth faded a little more.

The worst part was that no one seemed to care about her pain. Her mother, overwhelmed with the care of her brother, barely noticed Neha’s growing sadness. Her father, once her protector, had become someone she feared. He was quick to anger, and every time she looked into his eyes, all she saw was disappointment—a reminder that she wasn’t enough, that she had never been enough.

At school, Neha's height made her stand out in the worst way possible. She was taller than all the other girls, and this became another reason for her classmates to target her. They mocked her, calling her names that stung in the quiet moments when no one was around to defend her. "Too tall," they said. "Too different." Neha began to hate her own body, wishing she could shrink into the shadows, become invisible like she already felt inside.

She longed for a friend, someone who would see her and understand the loneliness that gnawed at her every day. But whenever someone showed her kindness, it was always fleeting. Her classmates used her only when it suited them—if they needed something, they'd sit with her, but as soon as their needs were met, they left her behind, like she was nothing more than a convenience.

Each night, Neha would cry herself to sleep, hoping the next day would be different. But it never was. Her father’s distance, her mother’s exhaustion, her classmates' cruelty—they all remained. And Neha, in the middle of it all, felt like a ghost in her own life.

She often wondered if things would’ve been different if she were a boy. Maybe then her father would have smiled at her, would have seen her as someone to be proud of. Maybe her grandmother wouldn’t have looked at her with such disdain. Maybe her life wouldn’t feel like one long, unanswered question—why wasn’t she enough?