A NEW WORLD

She sat near the window, gazing at the tree outside- though at a distance, it seemed the only close companion she was left with. She sipped on her tea, with Lata Mangeshkar crooning in the background. ‘It felt good to be home’, she thought, even though it was no longer the home she had always known. As she picked up the local newspaper, the headline rattled her, shook her. ‘No’, she thought, ‘this cant happen to me’. She felt a pain so sharp, she doubled over. ‘How did it ever come to this’? She asked herself.

“Beta, this is your last Diwali with us”, said her mother, choking with emotion. ‘Next year, at this time, you will be celebrating diwali with your husband”. ‘Not again’, she sighed. Ever since she had told her parents about Ashish, everything seemed to revolve around her impending marriage! Her irritation however, was superficial; in reality, she was over the moon! She had known Ashish for a long time before they were engaged. No marriage was perfect, but she was happy she almost knew what to expect from theirs-when would they agree, when would they disagree, what would make him smile and what would make her laugh. Then again, a known danger is always better than an unknown one! She knew they had their differences, but if they had come this far, certainly it was an indication of good things to come!

She still could not understand where she had gone wrong in her marriage. He knew she was independent, intelligent and conscientious. True, she was not perfect, but then who was? Things began to fall apart when she mentioned the school. “Why do you care so much about other people? It will be more than enough if you looked after our own home”, he had said. “They are poor because they deserve to be that way-why should you make my life miserable because of all this nonsense?”, he went on. “All these things sound good, but it’s very difficult to live with these choices; why cant you be like other people and just enjoy a well paying job”? – he asked. She knew she was not like other people. She WAS different. She knew she cared and she knew she could never “not care”. Confronted with a choice between Ashish and the school, she had chosen the latter.

Her parents’ ambivalence on the issue of her marriage confused her, more than anything else. Had not they always taught her to be independent? Were they not the ones who had instilled values of dignity, respect and care in her? Had she not learnt to question and fight for her rights at their behest? Why, then, were they so unhappy with her decision? Why did they expect her to sacrifice her dreams and convictions at the altar of marriage?

With time, probably, her parents would have come to understand and accept her decision, had they not met with a fatal accident, soon after her legal separation with Ashish. She had still not lost hope and gone ahead with establishing a primary school in the nearby village. She had taught the same principles to the children- be honest, fearless, fight for your rights, never discriminate nor tolerate discrimination and confront injustice head-on! Her small army of Dalit children had believed in her and taken the liberty of playing in the space reserved for upper caste children. On being asked to leave, they had resisted and continued to play. She had been immensely proud of them and had treated them each to the “local” Fanta (which is made by the vendor, but sold using the real brand name) before leaving for the weekend to be with herself at her parents’ home, her home. She had dared to hope of a different future for herself and her children when she read the headline. ‘Mehta Trust Primary School gutted in a Fire’- the newspaper screamed at her. As she absently read the details, it informed her that the police suspected arson and hoped to bring the culprits to book soon. She cocked her head to a side and laughed hysterically, till tears started streaming down her face. That was HER school, the school she had painstakingly built for the Dalit children in the village- it was her dream, and now, the dream had gone up in flames. She smiled faintly through her tears realizing the pun. As she lay doubled over on the floor, she wondered how cruel could God be. She could not think of a single person she had deliberately hurt, could not think of a single time she had erred and not apologized, could not think of a single time she had lied or cheated. How then did it come to this? Was she crazily mixed up or was there something wrong with the world? She thought of the lifetime of pain she had lived this morning, and got up, more determined than ever, to pick up the pieces of her life and build a new world.

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