The Plight of a Woman

Some pains are forgettable, some are unforgettable. Some are delible, some are indelible. But Ramani had a pain that was neither delible nor forgettable. She writhed in the agony of that pain. She was neither able to conceal nor reveal it. She only subdued it with whatever valour she was able to muster. 

Ramani was born into a family that was in a business of extracting and selling palm juice, locally known as taadi. Her father used to climb up palm and date trees to collect taadi that was drunk by villagers as an indigenous intoxicant. It inebriated them well and was strong enough to make them fall into a sound slumber. No doubt it was a catalyst to relieve them of their tensions and depressions. Some took it for enjoyment and some to forgetting everything painful.

During the summer the palm trees produced the juice heavily. So the price of taadi was less in summer. In winter, the production was less so the price went up. But in the summer, customers too were more because it was the season when marriages would take place as the folks were free from irrigation work. So sales, as well as profit were high in the summer. 

Ramani grew into a young girl, all while seeing and learning those statistics. Sometimes she helped her mother in household work and sometimes she aided her father in his indigenously produced wine business. That was the only source of income for her family. With that scant income, they were not able to cope up with all the requirements of their family. They didn't have a proper house to live in or proper clothes to wear. The daily expenses were met by the daily income. On days when there was no sale, it would difficult for them to make the ends meet. During the offseason, when the palms produced less juice they had very little to get by and many festivals passed by without a celebration. 

When she began menstruating the search for a groom for her began. With their limited budget, they easily got a boy in a neighbouring district who was as illiterate as her. Neither of them even knew how to put their signature on any documents. They had never seen the threshold of a school. And without attaining maturity they were married. 

Nanda only knew how to extract juice from palm trees, but being young he didnt take much interest in that. He was strongly built and had a good physique from practicing climbing. With his filled body he looked older than his age. His father too was doing the same work extracting palm juice. 

He had five brothers and one sister. The sister was younger to him, Ranjita, who had been married off early as well, when she was in her teens. She was beautiful but she didn't know how to wear clothes and do makeup on her own in order to look pretty. After marriage she stayed with her husband in a small city nearby where she learnt how to wear clothes stylishly and beautify herself. After four or five months, when she came to see her parents, she had turned into a beautiful woman. She looked enchanted wearing simple yet elegant saris. Her body had filled out; no one was able to recognise her at a quick glance. 

When Ramani set foot into Nanda's house to start a new life she was shattered. Nanda's family was poorer than hers. They didn't even have rooms to accommodate both the elder brothers and their wives. On the first night, the newly-wed couple was provided with a room on account of depriving one of his eldest brothers of their personal intimacy. In the room, there was nothing except an old cot with a thin old rugged cushion lying. The floor was soiled and the porous roof was blackish with smoke emanating from the house oven. 

Ramani was tall but lean. She was too young to be married; she had just reached the threshold of teens. For the nuptial, she had been bedecked with artificial jewelry, except for a single gold nose-pin, that her mother had kept for her since her birth. She wore a crimson sari bespangled with bright colours, and a yellow border. 

She was placed in one of the two rooms. Slowly the room became crammed with guests to perform some post-marriage rituals. Once the rituals were over the guests disappeared one by one and Nanda was called in to be left alone with his new wife. Nanda appeared wearing a shy look on his face. He kept the room unbolted for some time but when he realised that everyone had gone to sleep he bolted it from inside. He whispered something to Ramani. Ramani replied nothing. Finding no response, he unveiled her and sat nearer to her. She got scared and moved a little away. 

Ruminating deeply over something, Nanda closed his eyes, became impassive and sat there akimbo. She realised something unusual had happened as she saw an inexpressive Nanda in contemplation. She came closer and put her hand on his shoulder. He opened his eyes and smiled. She smiled too. He extended his hands and drew her closer. She was scared but thought her happiness lay in that of her husband. He placed his arms around her waist and made her sit on his lap. She began breathing faster. He brushed aside her hair, placed his lips below her neck, and began caressing her soft, delicate body with one hand that reached under her sari. She closed her eyes. He began enjoying it. He laid her on the bed and removed the new innerwear she wore for the nuptial day. Being wantonly aroused he inserted his erection into her. She tried to crawl away, but it was no use. She raised her eyebrow but remained helpless. She shook her head in pain, but in vain. He went on and only stopped when he was satiated. Feeling gratified he smiled and asked her to wear her clothes. She was too sensitive to move. She felt the pain but remained speechless. The marriage was consummated. She was deflowered. 

Ramini's household routine began. Some months passed by. Winter came. There was no money left with them to run a big family. They had taken a loan from someone in the village but that too didn't last long. The responsibility befell on Nanda’s shoulders. Nanda had to go to Pune where a friend of his father had arranged a job for him. He knew he had to depart leaving his new wife, but he was helpless. While leaving he just said to Ramani, We have a problem for only two-three months. Ramani requested him, We will adjust with whatever money we have. Please dont go leaving me alone. He didn't bother to hear her.

He got a job as a labourer there. He was assigned to load and unload sacks of grain from trucks. Envisaging the plight of his house, he began doing the hard labour with full earnest. Without spending much on himself, he sent the remaining to his famished family. 

One day, while parking a truck the driver made a mistake. He positioned the truck on a slightly inclined surface instead of on a straight one. No one deliberated over that. Without caring too much the loading of the truck began. One labourer was on the truck arranging the sacks and another was in the storeroom helping Nanda to lift the sacks on his back. Nanda ferried with sacks full of grains one-by-one from the storeroom to the truck. The truck had been loaded with as many as twenty-five sacks. As he brought the next sack and threw it on the truck, the truck began moving backward. By then Nanda had turned and was walking away from the truck and did not notice. The man on the truck was busy arranging the sacks and the other was inside the storeroom. The driver was having tea. By the time someone noticed the apocalyptical situation, the truck gained momentum. It was too late for Nanda to sense as the truck hit him from behind on his head. The backside of his head was hammered by the back bastion of the truck. He swooned and collapsed immediately. The truck kept moving and the tyres crushed him with their full weight. The damage was so bad that no one was able to recognise him. A few people ran to stop the truck, but it was too late. The truck did its work and then stopped by itself.

He broke the promise he made to his wife. On getting the news Ramini fainted. There was nothing that could pacify her. She had to obliterate the vermilion from the parting in her hair and break the coloured bangles that were on her arms. She became a widow within a few months of marriage. She was no longer welcome in her parent's home. She had to continue to live in her husband's house because a girl takes birth in her parental house but her pyre can only be taken from her husbands house. Finding no other alternative, she devoted herself to serving the family members of her late husband. 

One of Nandu's younger brothers, Jeetu, had just crossed his teenage years. He was full of valour and enthusiasm. Once he saw Ramani while she was taking a bath and he couldn't understand what happened to him. He found her alluring. He began following her. The time came when he found her in his every breath. 

Ramani realised the unusual change in Jeetu's manner towards her. But she was not sure about what to do. Somehow he convinced her, but only on the promise that he will marry her. He solemnised his promise to her but destiny had something else in mind. 

There was a regular customer to his palm juice shop. He was not a bad person but a drunkard who was indifferent to others' gains or pains. He was moody too and sometimes he behaved stoically. Jeetu was on good terms with him.

One day he brought a proposal for marriage for Jeetu. The girl was of whitish complexion and her father was able to pay him some money as dowry. Jeetu melted. He agreed to marry the girl without consulting Ramani even once. The already bleak fate of Ramani turned bleaker. She had nothing to resort to, except pondering over her sorry fate. She was heartbroken again. 

Her naïveté became a cause of embarrassment soon. When she discovered she was pregnant, the earth under her legs slipped. 

Who could she tell her tale to now?