LOVE vs. INDIA

Chapter One

The hospital clock strikes 9 on a beautiful Saturday morning in spring. People come in to be with their loved ones as they go through a surgery or lie on their beds healing from a transplant. Last night, like most nights, the hospital had a new patient; a lady lying on the bed in room 103, waiting to welcome a little one into her family.

Ever since the day she was born, Maya has only known pain and suffering. Brought up in a poor family in a village near Bhiwandi with 4 brothers, she grew up to believe that her only purpose in life is to build a household, raise children, and live a life within the boundaries of the house. Education was not a luxury she could get, so all she excelled in was cooking and doing other daily chores that she learned from her mother. As soon as she turned 16, she was married to the Sarpanch's son. No one asked her what she wanted, but this is what she had to do; live by the will of her parents and do nothing to receive backlash from the society. Her marriage too, like her childhood was unhappy. Her in-laws worked her up until she passed out with tiredness; her husband came home drunk and beat her up every night. But, 7 months into the marriage that only made her life all the more reckless, a ray of happiness swept into her life for the first time since forever. She went to see the doctor that morning and to her extreme happiness, she was told that she was 2 months pregnant. While being a mother at a tender age of sixteen scared her, there was hope that the baby would make her husband softer as he will now have a responsibility of being a good father to their kid. The next 7 months of her pregnancy passed in a much less chaotic way than her days normally passed in that house. Her in-laws were more humane and her husband reduced his drinking to quite an extent. Somehow, Maya believed that better days in her life were coming.

That morning in the hospital, she was happy beyond measure. She couldn't wait to hold her newborn in her hands and cradle it to sleep every night. After 2 hours of agony in the operation theatre, a beautiful cry echoed around and hit every corner of the room. The doctor held a little girl covered in blood in his hands and gave her to the nurse. Maya's joy was beyond measures. She was a mother now; and no matter the hardships and sacrifices that job needs, she would do anything for her little girl in the skip of a heartbeat.

But, there's a saying that if you were born into sufferings, your entire life is already drowned in them. Turns out Maya's joy could only last a few moments. Her family came in to see the baby as soon as she was transferred back to her room in the hospital. 'Congratulations, it's a girl,' said the nurse to her husband. Her family was terrified. If it's a child, it has to be a boy. A girl was absolutely unacceptable. Maya's family insisted on ending the little babe's life, but she wouldn't let that happen. Boy or girl, it's her baby. She carried her within herself for nine months, she was her only hope, she was the only thing Maya has ever really loved. But how does it matter, a woman in our society cannot speak for herself, choices are not hers to make even if all they have to do with is her. That Saturday night, the same Saturday which started with a morning of hope; Maya's mother-in-law and her husband took the little girl child into the kitchen. A big pot was kept filled with boiling milk, and ruthlessly they drowned the babe in it. The cries of the little girl woke Maya up and she ran into the kitchen as soon as she understood what was going on but her husband held her tight and stopped her from getting to her baby. She begged and pleaded him to let her go, to let the baby go. That she would do anything he asks her to, that she would even give the baby up to someone else. She would do anything to pull her little girl out of that pot. But they wouldn't stop. Soon enough, out of the two voices that screamed and cried into the night, one stopped. Within one whole day, Maya's life had taken a turn from hope back to where it had started from; misery. Maybe in the end, society is all she has to live for.

              LOVE: 0  ;  INDIA: 1