The Woman

He: “Do you think I am joking?”
She: “Umm hmmm.”
He: “What?”
She: “I mean No.”
He: “You think I am joking.”
She: “No.”
He: “I am serious. I think I have dengue.”
She: “Ok.”
He: “Why are you talking to me like this?”
She: “How else should I talk?”

He hung up after that. She knows it is going to sting him. This indifference of hers. Perhaps more than her cheek stings from morning’s violence. She knows that he is feigning sickness. He is feeling guilty about beating her in the morning and wants to take it back. But violence leaves its marks. Not only on her body, but also on her already blemished soul.

She wishes that it continues to sting her, so that she continues to sting him. She laughs at herself. The pitiable state that she has got herself into. This time, she takes the full blame because it was her own actions that brought this upon her. Not the morning’s beatings, but the general bad luck – the hoarseness from everyday screaming, the soreness from being molested day after day, the pangs of the beatings.

Bad luck, she laughs, this time a little louder. Well, talk about trivializing an issue. For the first time in her life, she identifies with half the population of her country. For the first time she feels like an Indian-born and bred woman. She laughs again. Mad perhaps with the increasing self-pity. A woman. The person who is beaten, raped, blamed, jeered and leered at. A woman. Broken. Damaged. Decrepit.

A woman.