That Day Out

Karanjeet shifted uncomfortably as she squatted in an awkward position, the dry grass and the thorny twigs pricked her skin and ran a tremble through her spine on the warm summer night. With all her concentration and bated breath, she waited for the nearby rustling to go away. She squinted around if she could see a figure in the darkness, but there were no shadows as there was no moon illuminating the sky. It was pitch dark and the minutes seemed to crawl slower than seconds.

She shouldn’t have ventured out alone, she scolded herself.

That day was like any of the other weekends, when the whole family was at home – her husband of two years, and his big family and she, in an enormous household full of loud boisterous folks. It was unlike what she had been brought up in. Throughout her growing up years, her surroundings were always serene to the extent of being uncanny. All her childhood, she had played with dolls, read abundant books and literature and prayed for a big family. And her wish had come true when she was scurried off to this household. The grass is always greener on the other side and she had finally realized it living the life that she had always yearned for.

Karanjeet’s husband Lokha Singh was not well educated but he was very well settled and had a very good standing in society by the view of his financial status. The affluence was abundant, enough for generations to not work. Karanjeet’s mother dreamt of her daughter spending the rest of the family in comfort and riches, which they were unable to give her because of their limited resources.

“Why don’t you like your new family?” her observant mother had asked once when her visits to her had increased considerably after a few weeks of marriage.

She didn’t have an answer. Some things could never be explained just like prejudices – you felt them and that’s why they were there. She didn’t feel any connection with Lokha Singh. He viewed reading or having an intellectual talk as a weird waste of energy when you could spend the same time earning money or partying. Karanjeet felt totally out of place in her husband’s family and she doubted if she had any place in his thoughts. Nevertheless, her visits were always welcomed by her mother, till the fateful day when Karanjeet had got a call from the hospital about the catastrophic news of losing her mother.

And then there was total silence, from serene to eerie. And it was not just in her mother’s house but in Karanjeet’s life too.

That’s when this had started – her running away to places with no people – in search of peace, even though her mind was always shouting. It was a strenuous task to go through each day, smiling and conversing with her husband’s family without actually listening – being there with everybody but not really noticing them. She felt as if she was enduring somebody’s else’s life. The moments of her own life were just slipping

away like those grains of sand which would be finally washed away by the waves into the depths of the ocean.

She would take her favorite activities – a sketch long unfinished, an old book she had been longing to read but couldn’t concentrate because of the cacophony back home or just her walkman with her favorite cassette. Her husband and his family never realized she was gone as she would sneak out during their siesta hours on a Sunday. Just a couple of hours in the nearby woods or next to the gushing stream or in the vast green fields with hues of yellow here and there was enough to put a smile on her face for the rest of the week.

Gradually her heart started asking for more. Her enjoyment in solitude knew no bounds and all week long she would wait for the clock to strike two in the afternoon on a Sunday. She would put her ballet shoes so that he steps out of the house-made no noise.

But last week, the plans had to be changed. Her husband’s sister had a plan to call some of their friend's homes.

“You have met none of our friends since marriage!” her husband’s younger sister had mentioned while dusting out the crockery, in preparation for the afternoon tea with friends. “I have called all my close friends and they would stay the night over. We can chit chat for long hours till we are totally tired of talking!” she had jumped with excitement.

Karanjeet perspired under the breeze of the fan. Her mind raced to try to think of excuses that could let her out under any circumstances. But she was sucked into the situation as if she was sinking in quicksand. She had to give up – give up the wish for another week. She consoled herself with a promise that next time she would add a few extra hours to her alone time.

And then after a week, she told her husband that she wanted to go out for a walk alone to the nearby park and probably a stop at the temple and pray for her mother. That would buy her at least a few extra hours.

“Why do you need to get out of the house? There is a puja place in the backyard and the garden is big enough for your walk”, her husband announced disconsent as Karanjeet cringed with the possibility that her

plans of an extended retreat would go for a toss. After all, those were not safe times and the terrorist activities in Punjab were really on a rise. The markets used to close by six in the evening just giving enough time for the shopkeepers to pack up before heading back into the safe confines of their houses.

Karanjeet had to put a stop to her husband’s train of thought if she wanted her way that day.

“I shall be back well before six – and that will still be broad daylight. I can go alone as I don’t want to trouble your sisters as their afternoon nap is very precious after a hard day’s work of taking care of their kids and husbands” – She prayed that her promise would drip the necessary confidence to convince her husband that there was nothing to worry and he could go on with his schedule of the afternoon while she finished her visits in the neighborhood.

“I have never seen my sisters stepping out alone. Whatever you need is in this house! Don’t be reckless and irresponsible” instead, her husband continued like a headmaster rebuking a misbehaving teenager. With that, he stormed out and asked one of the family members to be always with her for the rest of the day. “Is she again acting strange?” she heard one of the members asking.

This continued for a few more weeks and finally, Karanjeet started going for shopping trips with her husband’s sisters in order to breathe the fresh air outside the house. Her soul longed for more and she waited for her husband’s suspicion to die down before again stepping out on her own.

That day her steps were full of exuberance as she tiptoed out of the house. She even bid a goodbye hug to the family dog who generally snarled at her. The dog whimpered with delight wagging his tail for a good few minutes as she stepped out of the big iron gate into a world full of possibilities. She had in fact packed a small snack that she had quietly sneaked into her room after breakfast. It was a cheese sandwich and some apricots – her favorite fruit but only available during the warm summers.

It was not even two yet and there she was already in the woods next to the rivulet, perched on a shining rock with a hardbound book that she had brought from her mother’s house. She had read “The Thorn Birds” innumerable times but she again immersed herself starting from the page that she had dog-eared the last time. Only a few hundred pages were left. If she could finish this today, she could start the other one which she had seen her neighbor flipping through uninterested. That was also a classic though a much thicker one – but the longer the story the better. It meant she could visit a totally different world for a longer duration, she could feel the characters and relive their experiences as put to words by the author, she could escape the noise around her.

Karanjeet munched her food and started devouring the book, lost in the emotions she felt as she turned the pages. The sun dipped low at the horizon and the light falling on her pages became dangerously feeble as she squinted through the few last pages. Finally, she closed the book and took a deep breath. The time spent had been worth the lies she had spoken to her new family. As she became more aware of what the time might be, she hurriedly packed her belongings in her sling bag. But it was as if the sun was racing with her and it soon became pitch dark – the woods and the nearby gushing water took a totally different menacing form as the light left their surface. It was much beyond her deadline to reach home. Anyway, it just meant a few harsh words from her husband and his family. She was now quite used to it by now and also adept in forgetting the unpleasantness like a bad dream.

With this thought, she got up from the rock. As she took her first step, she suddenly realized that she was not alone. Karanjeet felt something moving behind a nearby tree – something which might be on four legs. She didn’t know any wild animal in this small patch of woods – it was not that dense that wild animals could find enough shelter here. But who knew, if she could come so far from her habitat, so could the wild animal.

She could make out that the steps were gradually approaching towards her. Her eyes were not able to do the necessary functions due to lack of light and hence her ears tried to compensate for her other senses. But she would be no match for the wild animal. She tried to hide behind the rock as if to create a wall between her and her would-be predator.

A few minutes ticked by and she could hear some whispers from the same directions confirming that there were some rogue humans. And the next minute she heard a shot as if done in the air just to scare somebody or perhaps it was a call for the rest of the group to assemble.

There were at least two of them. One of the men said – “I am sure I saw a woman around this place.”

“How could you see so far and through these trees. You have unnecessarily made me walk so much.” the other one sounded irritated.

“Don’t worry. She will be worth it. We can kidnap her if she is worth a ransom! Or better still take her with us! Lock her for days before she serves us. Tell her that her true place is within four walls rather than out here in the open!!” it was as if the devil himself was speaking.

Karanjeet had to move away really fast, away from the danger. She had a good sense of the direction and where she should head if she wanted to reach the road. It was just a few hundred meters and she gathered all the courage to slowly move out of the invisible shadows of the rock. She started crawling in the opposite direction of the whispers, hoping the next few hundred steps would lead her towards her noisy household – the noise which always made her want to run away. She could hear the sounds of the road as she struggled to find the path in the near-zero light when suddenly an arm blocked her way and she was unable to proceed. She stared into a pair of cruel red eyes, the face hidden behind a black cloth merging into the dark night. The arm was carrying a gun.

Karanjeet hit the masked face with the book, the hardbound landing with full impact as it made the two-legged monster lose his balance. She sprinted towards nowhere, across the nearby fields towards the highway and totally in the opposite direction of her house. She ran like a gazelle – a gazelle separated from his herd and running away from his predator. She thought about all the days and nights when she had imagined she wanted to run away somewhere and she ran as fast as she could – as if she wished to be transported to a different time by this act of running. She ran for a long time, the longer than she thought she had in her might and strength, before finally finding some refuge behind a cluster of thick bushes, panting heavily for breath, air to her lungs – of safety and respite.

There were no sounds now – she had left the devils far behind. They had not bothered to follow her this far.

The cool breeze of the night and the exhaustion from the long run made her eyes droop as she sat in the uncomfortable position counting the ticks to give way to the light of the day.

A few hours and a rustle on the nearby leaves brought her out of the short bout of sleep. She remembered the cruel red eyes and drops of perspiration moved all the way from her forehead to her cheeks along with the tears from her eyes as she considered the possibility that the run towards freedom might have been furtive.

“Are you sure your wife came this far from the house?” it was a policeman asking somebody.

“She might have. You have already searched for the nearby areas. If you were not able to find her there, they would have come this far” Karanjeet heard her husband’s cold voice.

It was time for her to come out and put an end to everybody’s misery. She could hear the trucks passing by on the nearby highway – probably an early morning start to a long journey. Soon the first rays of the rising sun would fall on the bushes, anyway revealing her hideout.

“This is the exact reason I prefer her to be home always. It’s a big enough house to have whatever she needs in her world.” Her husband muttered in a voice seething with anger and frustration.

“You need a lock on your gates. You need to tell her that her place is within the four walls of the house not out here in the open!” The policeman was quick to suggest a solution.

 “Yes, I will put a lock next time. She has no right to step out without her husband's permission”, there was certainly irritation in her husband’s voice. “What will I tell my family when in the morning they ask about her!!”

“There is nothing here. Let us try to find in some other place” the policeman concluded after a few minutes.

“Let us go find on the other side of the road!”, he shouted to his constables before slowly retreating towards a different patch to continue their search for her.

Karanjeet could hear their steps departing. She wanted to call out from behind to stop her husband and to take her along with him to the home where her world resided. But her judgment got entangled in the fragile branches of the bush and her feet felt wedged to the ground.

And as the twilight of the dawn hit the mulch around her, Karanjeet decided that it would be another long walk before the noise of tonight and past so many days would finally fade away from her head. A long walk away from the four walls and any possibility of locked gates.