THE UNWANTED

CHAPTER 5

On reaching home she slowly opened the door and tiptoed to her room. Suddenly, her mother appeared from nowhere.

"Hey! Stop you good for nothing girl, where had you been all this while? And where's the firewood you went to collect?"

Tara was dumbfounded.

"Come on, speak up or I will tell your father that you returned home empty handed."

A quiver of fear on hearing her father's name crept up her spine.

"I'd been to the woods, but a hyena came after me. I ran to save myself and hid in the dense foliage of a tree. I kept on waiting till he went away as he kept on sitting underneath the tree where I was hiding," Tara blurted out shivering with fear.

"Are you sure you are not upto something," her mother's tone was furious enough to shake her out of her wits. With fear in her eyes she looked up at her mother's face straight into her eyes.

"What do you mean, I don't understand you?"

After washing her hands she took out a few rotis from the kitchen basket & started eating. By that time her mother had calmed down.

Two days passed & ultimately the day arrived when Tara had a next date with Ramu. "Ma!!!! I'm going to the forest to collect the firewood "Tara almost shrieked at the top of her voice to make it audible to her mother who was upstairs on the terrace busy hanging the washed clothes to dry. After hearing the response from her mother, Tara swiftly rushed out from the house, lest her mother may call her back for some odd work. Her steps were, as if she was running & soon she reached the vicinity of their rendezvous. Ramu was already there, his eyes glued to the path where Tara was supposed to come. As soon as she reached the venue, Ramu took her tightly in his arms & hugged her passionately. They sat on the same rock, behind a vast tree, where they had sat the last time. After a few seconds Ramu muttered softly into her ears "I'm glad that I've found pieces of myself lost in you. You've become my journey & my strength in this ocean of being & with your love, I know I can survive this longest walk called ———Life". Tara kept quiet & started fiddling with his hairs.

Suddenly she blurted," Ramu, promise you won't ever leave me. You know I love you too much."

Ramu-"Don't talk silly. How can I ever part with my life, i.e. you."

He pulled her over him & explored the topography of her body; twigs in her hair, calves striped red cause of cold weather & her Ghaghara smudged in meadow tones. The forest underlined her, accentuated her & illustrated her. She felt alive in his arms compared to her home whose dark places had left their signatures on her skin & whose bites still hummed around her forearms & the back where she was always hurt by her father 's beatings. After a few minutes Tara slowly released herself from Ramu's hands & kissing him on the mouth said, "Ramu, leave me now, I've to go" & narrated the last incident which happened at her home with her mother when she had reached late. On hearing the excuse she had made to her mother on reaching late, Ramu laughed till his stomach ached. "You are really a clever girl" he spoke laughingly. "The world has made me so" Tara quipped back in a complaining tone.

"Okay, okay!!! Don't feel frustrated, my love. Just hurry up & go, but don't forget to collect some firewood, otherwise this time you will be caught," Ramu called out grinning cheek to cheek.

"But when next?" Ramu enquired.

"Day after we meet," Tara spoke hurriedly & rushed to the woods.

In a couple of hours she was back home carrying a pile of wood on her head & axe in one hand. Internally, she thought, how her mother would feel happy seeing the entire heap. But she never knew what was destined to come her way. As soon as she entered the door of her house.....there stood her younger brother, father & mother all ready to pounce on her. She was dragged inside & pushed on the floor. Her father beat her up red & blue with a leather belt, her mother, with a slipper, with kitchen items, with everything that came in their hands. They threatened of killing her. In a fit of rage her father banged her head straight into the wall. There was blood all over the room (as she had her periods that day). The big bulge on her head pained.