Our Mindset Episode 2
Ate the food we had brought along and slept outside on the porch.
In the morning, that old lady came home to wake us up, carrying a pot in her hand.
She said to me, “Do you have flour for bhakri?” Half-asleep, I said “Yes” and sat up in my bedding.
She was looking at me with wide eyes. Then she said to my husband, “How did you end up with such a wife? She’s so beautiful, doesn’t look like she’s from a maang community at all. And you’ve brought her to a place like this?”
Then, looking at me, she said, “Do you know how to do farm work?”I lowered my head and said “No,” and then got up and gave her the pot filled with flour.
There was no facility for a toilet, bathroom, or water there. A little distance away, there was a water tank — we had to fetch water from there. Bathing was done in the open, and for the toilet, we had to go to the fields. Whenever the door was opened, there would be a strong smell of medicines. So I did everything — freshening up and all — outside on the porch itself.
The house was right beside the road. One of its doors faced the road. There was a big babhul (acacia) tree, and a cot was placed under it to sit on. After a while, people started coming and going.
Every person passing by was looking at us. I too would look toward the road whenever I heard the sound of a vehicle.
Since my husband had already lived there for eight years, the entire village knew him.
I was new to everyone — and a curiosity too. Everyone had the same question: “His wife is so beautiful? How did a farm laborer end up with such a beautiful wife?”
I was twenty years old when we went there. Fair-skinned, weighing just forty kilos, I looked really beautiful. I was married off when I was just twelve. I was in the seventh grade back then — only four days were left for my final exams. But I got married. I felt terrible that I couldn’t appear for my exams. But whom could I tell?
Just then, one of his friends arrived. Both of them were delighted to see each other. My husband asked me to put the kettle on for tea. They began reminiscing about old memories.
He looked at me and said, “Where did you find such a wife? Or did you elope with her?”
Whenever someone said such things to my husband, he felt extremely proud.But what he never told anyone was that he had tricked me into marrying him.He never mentioned that he worked as a tractor driver in a fiber company, earning just ninety rupees a day.He lied to me, saying he had a job in the Forest Department, and married me under false pretenses.