Undone

Chapter One: 1974

Rumi didi’s body lies rotting in a corner of an abandoned field that used to hold both of us back till dawn, when we would refuse to come home till we finished a satisfactory game of tag. Her face is unrecognisable. Her head is bashed in. Her eyes are shut, drenched in her own blood. Her body lies away from her head. Her stomach has wounds carved by an abandoned axe. The gashes on her chest comprise strings of dried-up blood. Her thirty-rupee pants have been torn to reveal broken bones, beaten till brittle. Her left foot has been cut neatly. It lies hanging from her ankle.

At least, she doesn’t have to walk anymore.

I tug at Ma’s saree, tears blinding my eyes.

She holds me in one bruised arm and wipes her tearful eye with another.

Shabotri Masi howls and falls to her knees, clutching the cold body to her chest. She seeks a comfort that has lost its way.

“I had told that girl not to sneak her skin out of her unworthy clothes,” Ashish Bose mutters, shaking his head, wiping his eyes devoid of tears.

I restrain myself from educating him on how the rape case has nothing to do with her clothes. I begin to tell him about how the minds of certain humans are infected and the blame is always shot at the victim’s actions to excuse the rapist’s unfathomable desires.

Baba stops me.

I look up at him.

His thick-framed glasses make him look stricter than usual.

I sigh and mumble it all under my breath, wondering what Rumi Didi had felt.

I flinch.

I don’t like the thought of pain.

“Take her home, Shyamoli,” Baba orders.

Ma simply nods and leads the way, dragging me by my hand.

That’s always how things have been in this district of Kolkata.

The husband speaks, the woman listens.

I refuse to, anyway.

As I walk away, I glance back at Rumi Didi’s body. I wave goodbye as tears stain my charred skin. One forgets its path and lands on my lip. It’s salty.

Before looking back at the path in front of me, I stare at Mr. Bose’s face devoid of unwelcomed tears.

Do only tears indicate grief and the absence of love?

I glance back to where I’m headed and realise I’m home.

 Ma opens the door to the small hut that only has one compartment with a bathroom.

I follow and force the old door shut behind me with my malnourished hands.

I’m only fourteen but I’ve seen it all.

I’ve seen the lack of money in my family, the bruises on my mother’s arms and the silent rules of patriarchal society.

I watch, seated with my legs crossed on the floor, waiting to be served.

“What are you waiting for?” Ma asks bluntly.

“Bhaat and daal?” I ask, surprised.

On observing the specks of surprise in her face, I continue to say “The way Baba does.”

Ma pulls me up by my right arm and slaps me across my face.

“Your baba is a man. Your brother, too, is a man. You, Raya, are a girl. You must serve those waiting to be loved,” she asserts.

I blink away wretched tears and walk towards the counter. I take the vessel of rice just as the door flings open. I wait for my baba’s habit of entering and asking if food is ready.

Thud.

I’ve thrown the ‘hari’ on my father’s feet, with the boiling rice burning his skin. His feet, under the weight of the vessel, flinch, but to prove his manhood, he doesn’t scream. Instead, he rages towards my mother, limping.

My mother stands still.

I wonder if she even wants to be saved.

I watch as he pulls her by her black curls and throws her against the floor. He stands over her, slapping her, shaking her, and forcing off her clothes. I watch as he does unexplainable, unforgettable things to my mother, refusing to let her go.

I stay silent, watching a woman of my own blood suffer. I watch as a tooth soaked in blood falls from her mouth. I watch as my father clings to her neck, leaving behind marks. I watch it all.

When my father walks out, he glares— a look I’ve memorised by now. If I tell a word, I’m dead before dawn.

My father scoops her in his arms and takes her out to the garden. After having dug up a hollow burial ground, he throws her in. He catches me staring through the window.

I know I’m next.

Chapter Two: 1975

It’s been exactly a year since Rumi Didi’s death, and the apparent departure of my mother, said by my father.

The police never tried to understand what happened to Rumi Didi.

They should’ve just asked me.

After all, I had seen it all.

I had seen our neighbourhood friend, Bhola, try to purse his lips into hers. I had seen her try to refuse, and his anger on her refusal.

I had seen every minute of it.

As a girl, I had been taught to not speak until spoken to.

I waited for someone to ask.

But no one thought a fourteen-year-old would know much.

I hear the familiar screams of Shabotri Masi and rush into the adjoining hut.

On entering, I see Mr. Bose’s body soaked in blood, and Shabotri Masi quivering, with a burning pan in her wrinkled arms.

I walk up to her, slowly, gently.

“Raya,” she begins to say as her voice breaks.

She falls into my arms wailing, “It was him. It was always him.”

I knew it wasn’t but I let her embrace me anyway.

When she wept till there were no tears left, she pulled back, waiting for me to utter a few words of comfort and of care.

I shake my head.

Her eyes narrow and her eyebrows are raised.

Through the window, I point to the hut beside hers.

“It was Bhola.”

 Chapter Three: 1976

Shabotri Masi waits till nightfall to enter into Bhola’s hut.

I wait for her.

She doesn’t know I’m watching.

So, she plunges her knife into Bhola’s chest till all the blood has seeped out, till he’s dead.

Shabotri Masi looks back at me and smiles.

She knew I was watching.

She knew I’d keep her little secret.

 Chapter Four: 1977

I feel the handcuffs around my wrists.

I resist.

“It wasn’t me. It was Shabotri Masi.” I plead.

“Who killed Bhola?”

“Shabotri Masi did.”

“And Ashish Bose?”

“Shabotri Masi.”

“What about your mother?”

“My father did.”

“Do you know who killed Rumi?”

“Bhola from across the street.”

A faded photo-album of old pictures is thrown at me.

“Go through it,” one of the officers says.

I do.

I find pictures of myself in Rumi didi’s lap. I find pictures of Bhola and of my mother and of Mr. Bose.

“Where are they, Raya?” the officer asks.

“Where’s your father? Where’s Shabotri Bose?”

“Bhola killed Rumi Didi!” I exclaim, banging the table.

“And who killed Bhola?” he smiles.

“Shabotri Masi did.”

“Shabotri Masi died in 1973, a year before Rumi’s death. She was killed along with your father and Ashish Bose, Raya.”

He stares at me. I stare back, gently.

“The only person who could have killed them was you, Raya. You are Shabotri Masi, aren’t you?”

The table quivers and falls on the officer. I shut my ears to block out Shabotri Masi’s screams. How can I be Shabotri Masi when she’s the one killing him right in front of me?

The noise comes to a halt.

Silence can be heard.

My breathing slows down.

The blood is on my clothes.

The blood is on my clothes.

When did I leave myself behind?