Kavitha sits on a cot under the neem tree, surrounded by the three kids she is teaching. The kids are repeating loudly what she has told them to. While I watch amused, she comes to me to ask what was written in the oldest child’s diary.
More than twenty years ago, her parents had come to stay as our domestic help. Kavitha’s father was a driver and an alcoholic. I tried to get Kavitha and her brother Venkatesh enrolled in a government school. I took their lessons and both worked hard, with a lot of scolding and punishments from me.
Then Kavitha started her periods and the whole world turned topsy turvy.
She was barely 12 going on 13. The family packed up and left for the village where they performed the wedding rituals. She was married off to a cousin she detested. All my protests fell on deaf ears.
School came to an unceremonious end for both the sister and brother.
Six months later the little girl was back. I spotted her sitting on the steps of the house across the road. I asked the mother what happened? No explanations, except sheer embarrassment that she had let the parents down by running away from her marriage.
The father and mother began beating her with sticks and stones-- I was amazed that she survived
Some 15 years later Kavitha, Venkatesh and their mother came back to stay in my servants quarters. A lot had happened in their lives—the father had finally kicked the bucket. Venkatesh was now a driver with a valid license and a job.
Kavitha came with an infant, a few months old. Her ‘husband’ was in Dubai. Slowly, ever so slowly, her story unfolded.
She had been working in a store and doing pretty well . There she met Anand who had been her neighbour for a very long time. They fell in love and she decided to marry him, knowing full well that he was already married and had a teenaged son. There was no fancy wedding trappings this time, no registration, no acknowledgement by the parents. But she was happy.
Very soon she was pregnant and inspite of her husband’s protests she went ahead and had the baby. Since she did not obey his diktat, he left her to her own devices, occasionally providing her some money. When the little boy was two, Kavitha found herself pregnant again—her husband had been visiting her on the quiet. Her brother, Venkatesh, who was helping her run the household put his foot down and insisted she abort the foetus. Thankfully she heard him out and with the help of a doctor she managed to free herself of this additional burden
Her husband meanwhile continues to abandon his responsibility while she is making sure her little boy goes to school.
Venkatesh’s wife had decided to leave for the village with his two kids. She has since returned.
Kavitha is a mothering sort and insists that the three kids—her brother’s two and her own one--- study. She is ferrying them to and from the school. She has even been in a minor accident but she does not give up.
Kavitha is street smart; she knows how to order stuff online, she can handle her bank accounts and is a quick learner on the phone computer. She has learnt how to sew clothes and is making some pin money on the side.
She has understood that she has to look after herself. Her mother remains her biggest support
Bio
Shyamola Khanna has been a teacher all her life, teaching English at all the various IAF schools where her husband were posted. She is a freelancing journalist /writer and continues to write for magazines as well as teach English and soft skills at engineering colleges and MBA schools.
She is a published author of three books : The COW in Kargyll, published in 2016, The Lahore Connection(2019), a collection of women centric short stories. And her latest “from Mukherji to Malhotra”. The fourth is in the pipeline
She continues to learn art and photography and remains an avid traveler