Karishma was agitated and unnerved. She spent the rest of the day with Mou. By the time she came back, Vikram was already at home.

“Where were you?” he asked dryly.

“I was with Mou.”

“You had some work?”

“She wanted to go shopping.”

“You should come back before six.”

“I’m sorry,” she said and picked up the shirt he had discarded on the bed to hang it at its place. “Have you had tea?”

“No.”

“Would you have it downstairs? Or shall I bring it here?”

“I will have it here. Bring yours too.”

Karishma sighed inwardly. It was a sign that he wanted to have one of his ‘talks’ with her. It was a routine whenever he got any reports of her transgressions.

He was combing his hair, when she brought the tea. She started sipping hers without waiting for him.

“What happened today? Mummy told me you were unwell. Still you went out?”

She wanted to reply coolly. But she felt a surge of anger swell within her. She burst forth sharply. “Damn right, I was unwell. Any sane person with a heart will be. There has been a murder in this family this morning.”

“Abortion till this time is quite common. You are unnecessarily being queasy. And please mind your language.”

His calmness while replying angered her even more.

“You know, as well as I do, that it wasn’t a willing abortion. It was the killing of a girl child.”

“When Virat and Malti don’t have a problem, why are you creating uproar?”

“What if it was our daughter?”

“It wasn’t.”

“So, would you speak up and stop it if it happens to our daughter?”

“We will cross the bridge when it comes. Now, you better behave yourself. You have been an absolute nuisance today. This is not acceptable. And don’t go around blabbering about it to your friends.”

“He wouldn’t do a thing, Mou,” she later told her friend on phone, “Bizarre as my situation is, I can only be thankful that I was warned in advance. I can’t have them know anything of my pregnancy until I know the sex of the child. To think that all this while I had wanted a girl so much!”

“You are not an illiterate, poor woman, Karishma. Whatever happens, they can’t touch your baby if you don’t want it.”

“Still, they can’t know Mou. Not until I know what I am going to do. Mou, will you please talk to the doctor and find out what symptoms I can expect in next four weeks. I must hide those from them. I can’t come out too often to meet the doctor.”

“I will do that. Karishma I was wondering…”

“Yeah?”

“Couldn’t you make up some story and stay with me for some time?”

She chuckled bitterly, “You still don’t realize that we married women are prisoners in this family, do you? If I have to be free, I have to run away. Bye Mou. Don’t call me. I will call you when I am alone. Do talk to the doctor.”

—

Karishma paced frantically in Mou’s room. They had just come back from the doctor after sex determination.

“You want to save your baby, right? I don’t see how you can do that if you are so stressed out all the time. Why do you give a damn about those people, Karishma? Get out of that house, that marriage, raise your baby; move on!”

“It’s not that simple. I can buy as much jewelry as I like, but I don’t have any money of my own. I can’t spend a single penny without explaining. I can’t start a job now. After the birth – yes. I need to think of something until then…”

“Go to your parent’s house.”

“I have thought about that, Mou. But that isn’t my parent’s house any longer.” Karishma’s eyes got moist.

“What do you mean?”

“Anu – my sister-in-law is not particularly fond of hosting us sisters… And if I go there with the burden of pregnancy…”

“What about the rest of the family? Your mother, aunts, uncles…”

“If you had seen what I saw the last time I visited them, you won’t recognize it as the same family, Mou. Anu is so disposed to making a mountain out of every molehill that everyone has just given up. She runs the house the way she pleases. It had never been like this before… It will be so much better if they just moved out… But the question of prestige comes in… They will rather tolerate her than let them live separately… They have their own share of problems, Mou. They can’t help me.”

“Stay with me, Karishma.”

“I will need your help at every step. And if I can indeed think of nothing else… But it’s just… And I don’t know if I can really do what I want if I stay in Kolkata… God! He was right Mou. I was too young then to take a decision that I will have to stick to for my life. I shouldn’t have agreed to marry in a family that made people keep such barbaric promises…”

“Who had said? What?”

“Prof. Sen…”

Mou looked at her sympathetically. Just to change the topic for a while, she asked. “Where is he? Still in Mumbai?”

“No. He had left the same year we graduated. He would be Dharmshala now. There was some newly created university. At least that was his plan. And if he hasn’t moved on since. We haven’t kept in touch.”

“Hmm…”

Karishma sat back in an armchair and closed her eyes. Mou let her be while she tried to rack her own brains for a solution.

Karishma stood up briskly after about fifteen minutes. “Mou. Would you search online to see if there is a university in Dharmshaala? See what you can find. Check the list of their faculty members.”

“You are looking for SS?”

“I’m going crazy, you can say, but please bring your laptop.”

In about five minutes they had the confirmation that Siddhartha Sen was at a university in Dharmshala.

“You want to call him up?” Mou asked uncertainly, “You think he will help you?”

“I won’t call him up. I will go with blind faith.”

“And do what? And how will you go? Will you run away?”

“No. Who will pay for my living there? And the baby? They must pay it. Why shouldn’t they? It is because of them that I am not working. ‘Women in this family do not need to work.’ I have to find a way of getting away from them without revealing anything and without being accompanied by any of them. And I have to do it quickly. I will start showing soon. Oh Lord! How? How?”

—

To be continued