LOST IN MAN'S WORLD

Water started overflowing the washbasin. Ruma felt a piercing chill run through her bare flesh as the water meandered down to her. In a state of semi consciousness she realized that she was alive. She turned her head towards the washbasin. As the water kissed her cheeks she could see the steadily accumulating puddle of water sharing the red colour which her sari, otherwise snow white, acquired, maybe an hour or two back. She tried to sit up, but failed. An aching body, collapsing strength and an unbearably killing pain between her legs was making a mockery of her effort. She closed her eyes trying to recollect. In the solitude of her artificial darkness she saw a cyclone walked over her that shredded her life with a razor sharp accuracy. She was raped.

“So where did he first hold you and tell me in details what happened? asked the officer on duty of the Ratan Nagar police station. This was the first time Ruma was in a police station and that too to lodge an FIR and the very first feeling she had of being disrobed. In the next half an hour she lost count of the number of times she was repeatedly disrobed. As she left the police station a feeling of nakedness followed her as if everyone was staring at her with an X-ray eyes.

It was late in the afternoon. The sun was planting its last rays on her garden. Ruma was sitting on her rocking chair in her balcony, veiled by the elongating shadows of the old 'money plant' leaves. What should she be doing? Cry? Even tears had dried up. Should she kill herself? As she was contemplating, a helpless emptiness gripped her. A vehicle drawing up in front of Shankar Yadav's bungalow broke her trance. Till then she was unaware of the soft drizzle she loved so much till the other day. It was a police van. About fifteen minutes later she saw the policemen returning to the van with Santanu with them.

“Everything would be fine,” she said to herself as she eased herself in to the sofa straining her eyes towards the wooden gate some 50 metres away from the window. She was expecting her husband, Nishant, Who was rushing back to her side, cutting short his much important official tour.

A year later Santanu was acquitted. In between his father, Shankar Yadav won the assembly elections. She got the news from her lawyer. The judgment advised Ruma to take psychiatric help. With her eyes opening its floodgates, she reached Nishant's office. Munching the last bite of a burger he was busy dropping sugar cubes into the secretary's coffee mug. As she dropped in the secretary left. Lowering herself into a chair she looked at Nishant for a few seconds and said, “We lost the case”. “I know,” he coldly replied as he browsed through a file. She felt as if her heart skipped a beat or two. Placing herself in front of the window she stared down. Construction work was in progress in the opposite building. She saw a few women carrying bricks on their head and depositing it on the fourth floor. A worker was feeding her child under the shade of the grinding machine. The supervisor went to her and shouted, “You bitch, feed her later on. She won't die. Go to work”. The woman laid a thin cloth on the stones and placed her crying baby there and left for work. Ruma left the office without saying anything. Nishant was too busy talking to his lawyer.

Ruma was in the kitchen when she heard the doorbell ring. It was only 8pm. It could not be Nishant, as now a days he was returning very late. She opened the door trying to make a guess and saw Nishant entering and sitting down on the sofa. As she was making her way into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water for him he stopped her and held out his hand. He was holding out a few pieces of paper. She took them while leaving for the kitchen. As she poured her eyes over them she felt a numbness creeping into her. She finds her world under her slipping away. She was reading her divorce papers.

Ruma boarded the train bound for her maternal town. The driver came to see her off. Before leaving the driver said, “Madam, next week is my daughter's wedding. Can you give me something?” She fished out whatever was there in her purse and placed it in his hand as the train started its journey. “Ruma was supposed to arrive today, wasn't she?” asked her mother. Her father, who was engrossed in the newspaper, said “Yes, but I hope she doesn't”. And Ruma didn't.