It was winter of 2009, I had turned seventeen and it was my last year in school. Skirts were swaying few inches above their knees gathering everyone’s attention. And boys were ogling at girls from corner of their eyes. Cell phones were not allowed in school premises, but everyone managed to have one. Those pretty, amazing, confused puberty days.
“Thank god you are here. I thought you will not come today and we won’t be able to meet for two long years” Piyali said to me.
We meet an array of people in our life. Some people stay with you, some adore you, some snub you, some care for you, but there on earth are some people who love you from core of their heart, irrespective of how you look, what you wear, and what you have. You know what they like and they know what you love. There is a complex connection between both the hearts that nobody can understand. If you fall they will pull you up. You laugh together, you play together and sometimes you bitch together. They are your shadow, they are your best friends. And Piyali was one of them to me.
I waved her a good bye as she disappeared behind those white glossy walls. Isolated, I without her. My entire auto ride to home was filled with deep
sentimental emotions. I was missing her already.
Driver screeched the breaks of auto rickshaw and it came to a halt. “Ma’am, I think the tube got punctured. I will just check it.” He said and checked for the problem. “You will have to take another auto Ma’am”
I paid him seventy rupees and left the auto to search for another one. The place was too eerie, darkness was everywhere in my sight. I could only see a bulb glowing at a very far distance from my place. Walking on an abandoned road I felt the presence of a bike behind me, he was honking continuously on an empty road.
“I should have kept that pepper spray in my bag” I thought.With uneven strides, I ran on those black asphalt roads. There wasn’t any surreal voice of horn in the environment now. I felt relieved and started dialling my mother’s number. Someone held my waist from back and my legs started buckling. His touch was cold.
The sound of my clothes ripping still reverberates in my ears. He kept both my hands behind my back with his hand and used another hand to gag me and stop me from screaming. I tried to scream and kick but failed to do anything in his tight grip. He laughed as I tried to scream. He rubbed his body against my chest, bit my virgin lips and pulled my tousled hair. His halitosis smelled of alcohol.
The beast ran away shirtless when he saw an auto coming towards us. He didn’t look at me, nor did he say anything to me. My cell phone was ringing consistently, I crawled towards the cell phone and wiped my tears. It was my mother who was calling me consistently. I cut the call, I did not have any courage to tell her anything about this incident which would be a nightmare to me in my coming life.
I covered my body with his shirt and panicked to call my mother. My hands shivered as I dialled her number from my cell phone.
“Beta! Where are you? I have been calling you from last twenty minutes. Are you fine?” She said and I sobbed into the phone. I struggled to tell her but not even a single word came out of my mouth. With tears streaming down my cheeks, I somehow managed to explain her about the incident.
She came with tears in her eyes and hugged me, sat with me on the road and tried to console me. She helped me sit in the auto in which she came and we headed to our home.I used to cry when I was alone, I have seen my mother cry near my head over nights. My family stopped talking to me for what had happened to me as if it was I who provoked that beast to molest me. My mother never supported me when I asked her to lodge an FIR.
She said that these things are better kept safe under one ceiling. Everyone started staring at me with different eyes. I could see people rubbing their hairy chest against my chest in their imaginations. Soon I became a naked mannequin for boys. Piyali stopped messaging me too.
Even shadow leaves you in the darkness.
We meet an array of people in our life. Some people stay with you, some adore you, some snub you, some care for you, but there on earth are some people who love you from core of their heart, irrespective of how you look, what you wear, and what you have. You know what they like and they know what you love. There is a complex connection between both the hearts that nobody can understand. If you fall they will pull you up. You laugh together, you play together and sometimes you bitch together. They are your shadow, they are your best friends. And Piyali was one of them to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment