The wide stretched Thar was slowly rising from its sweet slumber. Last night it was annoyed enough by the excited chirpy crickets, and howling hyenas who would have caught hands on a fat gecko or luckier even, a troublesome wild fox. The old fellow had trouble falling asleep; the winds of the month of Falgun would caress its folds, the stillness of the night, the dark amavasya worked like a sweet lullaby. But the cooing peacocks, bleating lambs and hurrying red ants were a menace; it awakened, tired, lacking vigour, like Dhapu in her hut just then.
Wait, but she was also bleeding.
She had sobbed sitting below her dear dune last evening, she always did this when she needed a cuddle that wouldn’t smother her. She had slept in the embrace of those sands since she was a child, with her tresses open, her arms stretched, letting her closed eyes dry with the cool gusts of soothing winds.
This arid span of land had been her oasis. A haven. A retreat from those who should have been her safe home.
A rebel since birth, she was forced to drop out of school after class two. She had started reasoning with her mother who would add extra dollops of ghee in her brothers’ choorma. Married off at the age of thirteen, she could only see the patterns repeating. Her mother in law used to make lentil laddoos for her son. This would give him extra vigour, she would say.
By the time she turned twenty, she already had had two daughters, two miscarriages and a copper T contraceptive inserted in her already extorted, violated organs.
Each time, she was asked to be forbearing, little more tenacious by her mother as well as mother-in-law. They would cite their own examples, as if it would mitigate her hardships in any way or there was an invisible race that each woman had to run, and the one who suffered the most would get a trophy at the end of this labyrinth. If there was any end to it.
Dhapu had long ago stopped looking into the eyes of them both; she would look away in order to elude. The mechanism she had devised to feel less dejected by the apathy of her own sex.
The onus has always been on women, to carry on the bloodlines, to deliver the right gender, to keep the sweet little gaps between the offsprings. All while keeping their health at stake.
This morning she bled too heavily. The abdomen cramps had kept her awake all night. She had complained many times. No one paid heed. Dhapu was taken to the only dispensary of their dhani.
“Isse maarna hai to ek bar mein hi maar do,” (if you want to kill her, do it once and for all) the infuriated gynaecologist fumed at Dhapu’s husband and mother-in-law. She was immediately referred to the city hospital, which meant another four hours of ordeal for her.
Dhapu looked at those who were accompanying her in a roadways bus with eyes as dry as the sands of the Thar. Her parched lips and feeble frame had a sudden urge to scream but they resisted, they were giving up. She remembered her girls back home. Their befuddled, vulnerable eyes like those fawns who were being taken away from their ailing mother. Dhapu had witnessed those eyes before also. A couple of times. The younger one ardently wanted to play ‘gadda’ with her a few days ago. She had refused again.
They were asked to wait in what seemed to be an endless queue outside the doctor’s cabin. Scores of women – some pregnant, some too tender to be carrying their bulging tummies, some elderly, and some young girls sat on the benches. Dhapu sat down too but stood up again as she couldn’t take in the collective helplessness in the premises. Just outside the massive hall a khejri tree caught her attention; almost half eaten up by termites. Her eyes lingered a little longer on its state.
What else caught her attention was a yellow banner carelessly pasted on the corner of a wall outside. Dhapu could read what was written. She couldn’t grasp it all but understood that there was going to be a camp, held on the coming 8th March.
The cow-dung covered courtyard with bright white and red maandana looked welcoming. The beautiful Lotus motifs were done by Dhapu while the bordering red-white-red leaves were painted by the two little pairs of hands. The aroma of freshly prepared lentil laddoos and garlic chutney and millet breads filled every nook of the small hut. Dhapu’s mother-in-law had been extra cautious with the meals that were to be given to her son who had not been well last month. A nasty stomach ache had kept him away from going to work. The sooner he got well, the better would be the hopes of having a grandson.
Meanwhile,the retreating bleating goats were ushering the blissful dusk, however the old Thar was still ecstatic, in a mood to keep company with a carefree mother playing gadda with her dear daughters somewhere near their favourite dune.
Glossary:
Falgun: the month of March
Amavasya: new moon
Choorma: a Rajasthani sweet delicacy
Dhani: a village or small hamlet
Gadda: a game in which girls play with small rocks or pebbles
Khejri: a tree commonly found in the Thar desert
Maandana: a type of rangoli, alpana drawn with finger tips dipped in chalk soaked water
