All Of Us Women

"When I was little and naive, father and mother married me to a man I did not know. I was 14 and was going to the 7th grade. That was the last I saw of school and my close friends. I remember boy, girls, men and women came to my house in equal numbers. They sang and danced all night. Food and alcohol were abundant. The next morning, father and mother had me put on the new clothes they had bought from the carnival and I was taken away to what they told me was going to be my new home. I remember I had cried. After spending a night at my husband's house, I returned home and pleaded with my father, 'Please do not send me away. I will do whatever you want me to but let me stay here.' Seeing his daughter in such despair he might have had a change of heart that he let me stay. And my husband and my father must have made a reconciliation of words. Two years passed and that was when my husband returned asking for me. He said to my father, 'You have made a promise to me and now, I have come to take my wedded wife.' Father obliged and so did mother and I had no other choice than to go live in his house. At my husband's house, things were never easy. When I was 17, I had my first son. I lost my youth tending to the demands of my in-laws. I did not see the world, nor could live my life of freedom. My husband loves me but after my second son was born he seems to have lost interest in me. Maybe I have worn out. But my son is good boys and they keep me busy. During the festival of Bhadau Purnima, I go to my parent's house. All the friends that I have lost touch with regather in one place and we share our burdens of being a woman and for a brief time breathe freely. All of us women who were given away against our will at a young age laugh about our common fate - our common past and our common future."