Everyone is alone. So was she. She used to think about her loneliness. She loved to share her loneliness and misery with her friends and loved ones. Sometimes, she wondered how she was lonely if she had a lot of people to talk about her loneliness with.
This was not all. This is not all. She meant to be different from the others. She was not like most girls. She was not into fashion, jewelry, pearls, curves or attention. She was who she was. She meant to be unique.
And she was.
Her life had been defined… her gender by society and profession by her parents. She was a thinker. She used to think even in her profession. She was known to be a thinker among her friends. But she was lonely.
She remembers what went wrong. It was just a small incident of touch… a touch she didn’t allow, but she was never asked. She was touched where she didn’t feel comfortable.
With fire and fear in her eyes, she couldn’t stop him.
How could she stop him? He was a gentleman. A family member. He is still a gentleman and a family member. He resolves family issues. He is the one who is usually asked to recite naats during gatherings and performing ghussals in family funerals.
That gentleman took the basics of her life away. Her natural feelings from childhood to adolescence to teenage to a girl and to a loving wife; all were taken away. She was not normal. She was alone. She was deprived internally. Nothing had filled the emptiness inside.
How could she tell her newly married husband to stay away from this gentleman? How could she tell someone in the family that the gentleman is not a gentleman? The effects could be long and devastating. She was afraid. She was alone.
A boy came in her life after a year of marriage; a beautiful and healthy lad. That gentleman started to visit again more regularly. His gentleness was the same. She saw the animal. He saw a prey. A new and young prey. She was standing at the same place where she stood two decades back. Because she was alone.
She started to guard her boy like a lioness.
One day; an unfortunate day, her worst nightmare came true. She saw the same fire and fear in the eyes of her lad. That was it. That was enough to bring out the lioness in her.
Was she to blame? Her silence was to blame or her loneliness? Her fears were to blame or her nightmares?
She stabbed the gentleman. She stabbed him again and again and again… until she was done. Her husband was watching. Many relatives were present in the courtyard. They all saw. They all believed that she was wrong. She was mad. She smiled for the first time after her delivery. She laughed for the first time since who knows when.
Of course she was mad. Because she was the only one who knew the truth.
She doesn’t know where she is now. Sometimes she wakes up in a court; sometimes in a jail; sometimes in a ward.
But she doesn’t care because her other half is safe.
Is he?
Aren’t there more gentlemen around?
Very good piece of prose.