The Journey

The Journey

(This was published  in the Melange, The Sunday magazine of The Sentinel  on 21^st December, 2014)

Maloti, a little eleven year old girl,was very happy that bright, cheery morning. Her big, almond-shaped eyes were greedily taking in the commotion of the mélange of people gathered on the small platform.

She was standing on the “Guwahati-Railway-Platform Number-Two”. Her curious eyes moved around taking in the utter chaos surrounding her…the loud shrill cries of the vendors running around amok and the easy banter of the people intruding her chain of thoughts.

To her left, a group of restless youngsters were standing in a packed cluster; boys and girls with earphones dangling from their ears and bright neon- coloured backpacks on their back. Dressed almost alike, like a group of Siamese octuplets, the group of youngsters chattered excitedly in a parlance which was very alien to little Maloti’s ears.

Rekha Pehi, no blood relative of hers, was taking her to Delhi where Maloti would be working as a maid in some stranger’s house. Rekha Pehi has asked her to stand near the tea-stall. Rekha Pehi herself has gone off to relieve herself in the common toilet of the waiting room. The group of young boys and girls were now sauntering towards the book-stall near her. They, in minutes, became engrossed in buying a stack of newspapers and glossy illustrated magazines.

Maloti looked down towards her feet and smiled slightly. Her dimple appeared on her left cheek…a familiar image of an innocent child happy with the paradisiacal world she lived in.

Today she was happy beyond words… she was wearing a new frock, bright red in colour, studded with small flowery patterns in soft pink. Rekha Pehi had bought her the pretty dress the day before.

“Maloti! You cannot wear your old frock tomorrow on the journey!” Rekha pehi had exclaimed disdainfully, her slit-like eyes travelling over the oft-worn dress full of holes painstakingly darned by Maloti’s mother.

Yesterday Rekha Pehi had taken her to the Fancy Bazar, a big vibrant market, to buy her a set of new garb. Maloti had never seen so much colour and so many brightly wrapped knick-knacks in one place ever before in her life. In fact, Maloti never had bought any new apparel of her own choice ever before in her life… it was a new overwhelming experience for her.

Now standing on the crowded railway platform, she happily patted down the invisible crinkles on her new dress .As she lifted her head up to look across the platform, she saw Rekha Pehi hurrying towards her. “Maloti! Maloti! Pick up your bag quickly. The train has come!”

Maloti looked across….

With a loud screech, a long blue -coloured train hissed to a stop on the tracks before her. All of a sudden the people ambling lazily on the platform went berserk. A mad commotion broke out…the odd blend of people around her started to scramble towards the train in a bid to get in first.

A coolie came towards them and asked expectantly, “Mother! Do you have any luggage you want me to carry?”  “That man is so kind! Otherwise who would come forward to help us with our enormous pile of baggage!” thought little Maloti. She decided to reward him…..her lips curled into a wide smile, her cheek swelled flashing her dimples.But,to her utter disbelief and consternation, Rekha Pehi shooed him away like a pariah and the disgruntled coolie slunk away to a noisy family of four standing nearby.

Clutching Maloti firmly by her forearm, Rekha half- dragged the little girl towards the now motionless train. Minutes later, the duo finally managed to get inside, shoving and pushing through the throng of people gathered near the tiny entrance door.

A putrid smell mingled with the foul odour of urine and faeces assailed poor Maloti’s nostrils. To her utter panic, she could feel the sour taste of bile rushing up to her mouth. She tried to move her squashed body to breathe in some fresh air when, all of a sudden, Maloti was pulled into a tiny compartment. Sighing to herself, Rekha Pehi sat down heavily on an empty berth, a smug smile of relief now appearing on her glistening, sweaty face.

An elderly couple, crouched on the floor, were trying to heave and push their cases into the tiny space beneath the berth.

Shifting her attention, Maloti looked around the tiny compartment. On the two side-walls, bed-like berths were arranged in neat rows of three. Piles of dirt and trash, empty packets of potato chips and popcorn lay carelessly…… strewn across the grimy floor.

Her face twisted in a tight grimace, she peeped across the corridor. All she could see was a pandemonium of people moving amok, dragging their massive bags and suitcases behind them. Maloti giggled softly at the madness around. People… man, woman and children alike…. were rushing around to find their allotted berths…… their bodies reeking of lemony sweat, colliding against each other.

Rekha Pehi was now busy conversing with someone on her swanky mobile- phone; she was speaking in clear and crisp Hindi, a parlance utterly alien to little Maloti.

Suddenly feeling bereft, Maloti quietly sat next to Rekha Pehi, her tiny body squeezed tight to the tiny side- window.

Maloti suddenly lost her earlier exuberance, her curious eyes now stoical, travelled bleakly towards dark-grey platform. The platform was teeming with people….the hustle and bustle did not quell down as expected by Maloti….it was as if the world no longer cared about her virgin sojourn, a little girl leaving her home and hearth for probably an eon  …it was as if they had already forgotten about her.

From her vantage point, she could see the sad-faced coolies dressed in red- coloured shirts hurrying around with suitcases and bags heaped on their heads. The tea- vendors hovered from one window to another, their shrill trade -cries renting the air, “Chai, chai, garam chai!!. On one side of the platform, some scraggy-looking beggars dragged their distorted bodies around painfully, their bony arms outstretched….. their haunting, glazed eyes pleading for alms.

SCREECH!!! It seemed like an eternity but finally with a loud wail, the train started to pull out of the platform.

An unpremeditated and a terrifying sense of foreboding seized Maloti’s throbbing heart. Not really understanding the reason, she felt that an unknown silhouette of danger was waiting for her, biding its time patiently, expectantly….

Maloti suddenly felt unchecked, salty tears meandering across her cheeks….pearls of an unknown, unspoken grief proffered to make their presence known. Embarrassed and fearing a sharp rebuke from Rehka Pehi, she quickly averted her eyes towards her sandal-clad feet. Hoping that no one would see her, Maloti lifted the hem of her new dress to wipe her tears now falling like a tiny rivulet.

The old man sitting opposite to her was staring at her, his eyes, kind and understanding.  “Little girl, why are you crying? You can tell me… I am like your own Koka…grandfather.”

Slowly, Maloti lifted her tiny head.  As their eyes met, Maloti’s spirits lifted up. She felt as if her own grandfather was sitting across her, his tiny grey eyes crinkling with mirth.

Maloti opened her tiny mouth to speak, but not a single syllable escaped from her trembling lips. Maloti looked at the elderly man in despair, wringing her hands, suddenly ashamed of her gaucheness.

The old man was now holding a packet of biscuits….. He offered it to Maloti, “Don’t cry, little one! Here! Eat this”.

Maloti sat still; her little mind wondering what to do…

“Oh! She is travelling for the very first time on a train. This is her first time away from her home too….. That is why she is crying,” Rekha Pehi suddenly interposed, her hand still clutching the mobile phone. She smiled indulgently at the little group; her smile, though, not quite reaching her eyes.

“I am Krishnakanta Baruah from Pan Bazar. I and my wife, Neela are going to Delhi to spend sometime with our eldest son. He is a big engineer and works in a very big office in Noida!” the old man remarked. Krishnakanta Baruah chortled loudly, his voice dipped in obvious pride.

His wife sitting beside him rolled her eyes in exasperation.

The old lady was wearing a plain white mekhala chador with a patterned blue border. She now smiled at Rekha conversationally. “Rajen, my eldest son is now twenty-eight years old, has a good job but, you know, he seems to have a rather different idea about marriage… Kids! Sometimes you feel as if you cannot really understand them. We are getting old and we want to see our eldest son settled well before we leave for the Pearly gates….. But..Ha! Ha! But no, every time we broach this topic all hell becomes loose.” The lady in the white guffawed loudly; perhaps because she herself found her words funny or maybe because she was trying to hide her sadness or anger at her seemingly ‘disobedient’ son.

Rekha smiled politely.

The old lady continued, “There is a girl, the daughter of my husband’s friend. She works as a lecturer in a local college. She is pretty but a little short. I hope Rajen agrees to ‘see’ her when he comes to Guwahati the next time.”

Nodding her head knowingly, Rekha confided, “My husband does not want any children right now. He tells me that children are too noisy!” Rekha laughed emptily.

Her eyes sparkling animatedly, she recounted how they lived in her husband’s parental home in Faridabad, a place not far away from Delhi while her husband worked in a construction company in Delhi as a fourth-grade employee. “I was born in Gopinigaon…My parents still live there.  Every year I come down to my village to stay a month or two at my parent’s place…” she stressed.

In the meantime Krishnakanta Baruah had opened up a newspaper and in minutes he became engrossed in it.

The old woman asked, “Is the little girl your relative?”

“No! No! She is not my relative. She is from my village. She is travelling with me to Delhi to find some work. During Magh Bihu last year, her father, poor man, fell off from a big coconut tree. He was gathering coconuts to sell in the market…. They have two more children back home…. One day her mother came up to me and begged me to bring Maloti with me… I could not say no! It is a sad affair but what one can do? One is powerless against Fate!” said Rekha, her voice catching a plaintive note.

Rekha and the old woman fell silent, both of the women now sat without a word, their minds lost in deep, reflective thoughts.

There was a hint of melancholy in Rekha’s eyes when she caught the glimpse of a teary-eyed Maloti, a tiny figure sitting petulantly, her pimply face fixedly staring outside the tiny berth-window.

Patting Maloti’s back softly, Rekha asked, “Konmani! Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat? I have some til pitha with me.”

Maloti failed to answer back; her desolate eyes were fixed on the green meadows passing by in quick succession.

“Maa… Mother…” little Maloti stared at the dusty widow-pane, wishing she could conjure up her mother in front of her…body and soul.

”I wish I could turn back the time….. My family is waiting for me..Deuta!Father!”, Maloti’s heart screamed, her fragile insides churning in agony.

She knew that by this time her two little brothers, Hari, a bright nine- year old and Mohan, a seven- year old quiet little boy would be crossing the emerald –green rice fields to reach their ramshackle village- school near the Shiva temple. In no time, they would soon be singing aloud the numerical tables along with the other schoolchildren, “Eke Eke Dui, Dui Dui Sari…”

Her mother would probably be sitting by the Tat Xal, her delicate fingers dexterously weaving intricate red flower patterns on the gamusas, the red and white hand-woven towels of Assam. After all, April is not far away and Bohag Bihu, her beloved season will be ushered in with full pomp and grandeur.

Like always, her mother would sell her hand-woven gamusas to Jogesh Da, a middle-man, who will in turn sell them off to big handloom stores in Guwahati. Her mother would always complain that Jogesh Da was fleecing her…

Jogesh Da would always quip, ‘Times are bad! There is no market today for the hand-woven gamusas! Nowadays people prefer to buy those cheap, machine-woven gamusas imported from Madras! We call ourselves Axomiya and yet we do not even patronize our own weavers! There is no one left to buy our own phullam gamusa ….’ and hand her mother a paltry sum of money. Knowing that she had many mouths to feed, Maloti’s mother would sullenly tie the money on the hem of her chador and in the evening, when her father would come back home from the fields , tired & weary, her mother would rave and rant till her father would lose his temper…

Maloti sat on the train berth, lost in her thoughts, lost in the happy days she had spent in her home…… her village…… her Gopini Gaon…..

Her village, Gopini Gaon, was a beautiful, picturesque hamlet, located deep in the interiors of Assam. For little Maloti, her Gopinigaon was the most beautiful spot on Earth…she was in love with her beautiful village. The whole village was bedecked by many gigantic trees like Krishnasura, Radhasura, Bokul and in the Spring, the most awaited time of year of the Assamese rural folks, a riot of colours would break across the entire village. Fragrant flowers would bloom in clusters turning Gopini Gaon into a beautiful paradise…a tiny Garden of Eden tucked away in one of the remotest corner of Assam.

Maloti and her comrades would scamper through the village gathering the tangy bogoris in their upturned frocks. Running off to the lush green rice-fields, they would happily eat their ‘loot’, basking under the warm glaze of the sun.

Her father, Haren Deka was a good man, a good father.  He was a hard-working farmer, living by the sweat of his brow…….but hard times had forced her father to take up any odd job he could find here and there.

The year before, the Rain God played truant and a severe blistering summer had burnt down all the vulnerable rice-saplings, scorching the land dry till long snake-like, meandering cracks were seen, running across the rice fields.

Her mother rose to the occasion and tried to help her husband by weaving sets of hand-woven mekhala chador and selling them to Jogesh Da, but the hard-earned meagre sum of money was never enough to feed the family of five.

Lakhimi, their albino goat would give them some milk and Maloti’s mother would save some of it to make yogurt for the family. There had been many a days when Maloti and her family had to go off to sleep at night without a single morsel of food in their rumbling bellies

Little Maloti loved to help her mother in cooking the meals. They usually had a very simple fare of rice and dail. She used to feel quite grown up and important when her mother would hand over to her some ‘important’ tasks like chopping the onions or stirring the bubbling cauldron.  Sometimes if their fortunes looked up, her father would bring home a big rou mach and they would have the quintessential tangy Assamese curry of rohu fish and tomato.  There would be a piece of fish for everybody and her mother would look happily at her brood, elated to see their happy, satiated faces.

When Maloti was Mohan’s, her younger brother’s age she too used to go to the village school with Moromi, her maternal uncle’s daughter. She too would study the mathematical tables and poems and sing them aloud happily in a chorus.

The voices of the village children singing out their rhymes would be heard reverberating across the paddy –fields. Sometimes the gamusa-clad farmers and their huge bullocks pulling the heavy wooden ploughs, man and animal, would stop their work to listen to these musical voices singing out in one voice.

Those days were the happiest days of Maloti’s life. By the dusky,starry evening, the moment she would hear her father’s footsteps on the doorstep, Maloti would rush out to the courtyard and lay down the pira for her father to sit down.

Sitting next to her father, she would sip milk-less red tea in her own stainless- steel glass and eat her favourite snack of puffed rice and jaggery. Her father would sit in the courtyard, with his children surrounding him, narrating stories under the starry, cloudless sky.

“Child! Have you heard the story about the Bon Pori?” her father would say. Maloti and her brothers would happily get lost in the magical land of the Forest Fairy and her kingdom of sorcery and occult.

During Magh Bihu, this year, a rumour went round the village circles that Rekha has come down to visit her parents from Delhi. Since the villagers had never seen any place outside their tiny village, for them Rekha was akin to a very exotic person, a person who had seen the big,bad world outside their Gopini gaon.

One afternoon, Maloti sat happily with her friend, Moromi eating Kordoi, plucked fresh from Moromi’s star-fruit tree.

“Oi Maloti! Have you seen the new television set Rekha pehi has brought for her parents this time from Delhi?”

“Hmm!” Maloti grunted.

Elated that she going to relay village gossip to an oblivious Maloti, Moromi continued, “I saw her near the village-well yesterday! Rekha Pehi is so beautiful! And her clothes!… You will die of envy if you will see her beautiful clothes. You do not get such clothes even in Guwahati…….She looks like a film actress!” Moromi said reverentially.” I also want to go to Delhi and become rich like her. There is nothing left in this village…..” Maloti nodded her little head vigorously and confided to her young friend that she too felt the same.

A few days later Maloti had walked into her hut when she overheard her mother prattling about Rekha Pehi with the toothless old woman living next door.

Like any typical women melee, they tattled about how Rekha , a blossoming sixteen- year old beautiful girl ,had disappeared, suddenly,one day from Gopinigaon. She has gone away to Delhi to work with her cousin in a factory, her sad-faced parents had said.

Two years later after her ‘disappearance’ Rekha Pehi had come back home, to Gopinigaon, for a short visit. A very different picture accosted the villagers’ envious eyes…Rekha seemed to have grown very rich and breathtakingly beautiful. In the evening, she would stroll around the village donning beautiful, silky clothes with the village children flocking around her as if she owned the village.  Their resentment knew no bounds when Rekha’s parents, hard-working farmers like them, now wallowed in apparent luxury. Their wealthy daughter had been remitting them a bundle of money from Delhi and their turbulent days of trouble seemed to be over at last.

When Maloti heard Rekha Pehi’s story, she felt that Rekha Pehi was no less than a heroine depicted in the movies she would watch so gleefully in the village library-house with Moromi. She would then weave dreams…that instead of Rekha Pehi, it was she who was the heroical figure…it was she who was loved and fawned over by everybody in the village.

And then, like a bad movie, Fate struck…Tragedy became a permanent friend for Maloti’s family when her father fell down from a tall coconut tree while gathering coconuts in their own backyard. His back-bone shattered into several pieces, it was only a miracle that he was alive, the village doctor had said grimly.

As her father became bed-bound, the daunting responsibility of taking care of the entire house-hold fell upon Maloti’s mother’s head.

“Dada!Brother!  My children will starve. Please give me something. …Haren will pay you back as soon as he goes back to work.”  Maloti’s mother would plead, little Maloti in tow.

“Bou!  Don’t put me to shame! I also have a family to feed, you know. I cannot keep on giving you rice on credit forever…” would reply Gopal Da exasperated, the village grocer. He would shift his attention to another customer and Maloti and her mother would walk back home empty-handed.

Maloti’s heart would cry out whenever she would see the drawn faces of her hunger-driven brothers. Desperate, she would sometimes raid eggs from their neighbour’s chicken-coop…..Ecstatic at her success, she would lovingly watch her brothers gobble up the eggs she would boil for them.

This had now become a regular affair for Maloti.  A little girl had to turn into a petty thief, a beggar with the downfall of her good fortune. It now became a regular routine for Maloti and her mother to go around the village, begging for food door-to-door. Once they had to survive almost a week on empty stomachs.

Maloti could remember now that once,it seemed to have happened  an eon ago, some benevolent relatives, on learning  of their pitiable state of affairs, took upon themselves the ‘daunting’ responsibility of feeding their fate-worn poor cousins. They dutifully gave Maloti’s family some vegetables, xaak and a mound of rice, to pass through their turbulent times. When Maloti and her brothers started frequenting their houses regularly driven by pangs of hunger, the same relatives changed their tracks and closed their doors firmly upon them.

One day, Rekha came over to Maloti’s house. She and Maloti’s mother sat near the mud stove, one grim-faced listening and the other whispering gravely…

“Mahi, I have heard about your misfortune. But now you have to be strong for your family…. Why don’t you come with me to Delhi and see for yourself, the kind of work available out there?” advised Rekha knowingly.

“How can I leave my home, Rekha? I have three little ones and an ailing husband…My destiny is rotten, Rekha!” wailed Maloti’s mother, blowing her nose in her chador.

Rekha fell silent.

“I can understand what you are going through…..If you cannot come, why don’t you send Maloti instead? Nowadays people are ready to pay anything as salary for a house-help. In fact,I know a certain couple who will pay thirty-thousand rupees for a girl like Maloti…to work for them as a maid. The only catch is that the girl cannot come back home for two years…… It is like a job on a contract basis!!”

Clearing her throat, Rekha enumerated knowledgeably, how her difficult life had changed for the better when she had gone off to the land of dreams, Delhi. After her long discourse, a triumphant Rekha could see the much-awaited transformation in Maloti’s mother’s eyes, now glistening with hope and greed.

Maloti’s mother spent that tormenting night, tossing and turning on her pati, her sleep eluding her. A myriad of thoughts flitted across her turbulent mind. Her confused emotions clashed against each other like gigantic waves dashing against the high rocks on the shoreline of a vast endless ocean.

She looked at her innocent little daughter sleeping so guilelessly on the mud-floor with her brothers. Peering in the darkness she could see Maloti’s tiny chest heaving up and down in a rhythmic manner. Across the tiny mud room, she could hear her invalid husband whimpering in pain on the wooden khat, strewn with straw for a mattress.

Maloti’s mother’s mind was spinning, her heart cried out for help, “O Lord! Protector of Man! Help me decide…”

As the village rooster cried his early morning cry declaring to the inhabitants of Gopini gaon of the dawn breaking, Maloti’s mother had made a resolution……a decision that was going to change all of their lives forever.

The day next, after Rekha Pehi’s visit, Maloti could hear her parents arguing bitterly. Her bedridden father was shouting and ranting aloud. She had never seen her father in such a terrible rage before. But that day it seemed that the Devil itself had gotten into her father’s spirit….he was screaming unheard, vile curses at her sobbing but indignant mother. Maloti and her brothers sat huddled in a corner of the kitchen crouched in fear, their hands over their ears to shun out their parents’ wild screams.

All of a sudden, her mother rushed out of the house with her arms flailing, weeping like a possessed woman. Gathering her whimpering brothers in her arms, Maloti closed her eyes, wishing to be transported to the land of fairies and angels.

Maloti’s mother came back in the evening, just as the sky was turning into a hue of dark blue and grey. Red-eyed and swollen faced, she called Maloti to her side.

“Majoni! Rekha Pehi is going back to Delhi next week. She has offered to take you with her. She will find you work in a rich family where you will get new clothes, enough food to eat and big rooms to stay. You will never have to go hungry again…” Maloti’s mother broke down; the tiny mud-hut shook with her heart-rending sobs.

In no time, the day of leaving Gopini gaon rolled in.

All her relatives assembled on her mud-caked courtyard to see her off. It was as if Maloti had become a local celebrity in the short span of time.

“Majoni, please remember that this is your home. If you do not like it over there, come back….. May our God be with you….’ had whispered her maternal grandfather tenderly stroking Maloti’s head, his wrinkled hand trembling over her head.

“Maloti, my daughter!” was all her grief-stricken mother could utter when Maloti finally walked down to the bus-stand with Rekha Pehi.

Maloti could not even utter a proper adieu to her little brothers and her bed-ridden father; it was as if overnight she had outgrown her innocent eleven years forsaking her childhood forever.

“Maloti, are you alright?” Maloti snapped her eyes open.

The panorama outside had changed by then. Instead of picturesque lush green rice fields, landscapes of huge mango plantations were now passing by the window…illuminated by the orange dimming light of the setting sun. “We are now passing through Bihar,” said Rekha “Tomorrow in the morning we will reach New Delhi Railway station. Your Peha will be waiting for us”.

The elderly couple were fast asleep on their berths; their mouths hung wide open in a comical fashion. Loud cackles of laughter and easy banter could be heard from the nearby compartments.

Somewhere in a different compartment, somebody was crooning melodiously a famous song of Bhupen Hazarika’s, “Buku hom hom kore…..”

Soft musical notes from the strings of a guitar accompanied the unseen singer.

For a brief moment Maloti forgot her Gopini gaon and kept gazing at the vivid scenery outside. “Oi! Have you seen my I-pod?” screamed an unknown boy to no one in particular. Maloti thought that she had seen him in the morning at the station with the group of youngsters.

“Eat this rice and egg curry. Tomorrow will be a long day for you….” Rekha was holding a plate of food in front of Maloti.

Taking the plate of food from Rekha Pehi, Maloti tried to chew down her morsel of rice mixed with red-looking egg curry. She immediately spat it out; it was too spicy for her. Her eyes watering, she gulped down quickly some spoonfuls of plain rice. Her mother’s home- cooked simple fare flashed across her memory……a dam broke free in her tumultuous heart. She broke down sobbing out uncontrollably her fathomless grief. Rekha sat quietly beside Maloti, her wary eyes watching Maloti crying her heart out…..

Rekha!! Long after Maloti had fallen into a deep slumber, Rekha sat by Maloti’s feet lost in deep contemplation. She recalled the day when she herself had landed up at the New Delhi Railway station with Kavita, her uncle’s married daughter.

“Ba!Sister! Where are we going to stay?” enquired Rekha innocently, a young,nubile girl back then.

She had heard stories from Kavita of how she lived in a gigantic building with a lift to carry her to the door-step of her house … how she goes to the PVR , a big cinema hall, with her husband to watch Bollywood movies on weekends. When she landed up in Kavita’s broken- down shack realization dawned upon her that Kavita had been feeding her with a web of lies all along.

A horror-struck sixteen year-old Rekha was auctioned off to a brothel headed by the notorious Sarita Behen in the infamous red-light area in North Delhi, near the M.G.Road. She did not even know how she survived her days of terrifying torture and unending abuse. For her, the horrifying days and nights rolled into an infinite eternity.

After a year of abuse and suffering had gone by, she met Vikash Jha, a man of Bihari descent from Gaya. He was one of her regular patrons. One day Rekha eloped with him believing that her days of misfortune had finally come to an end.

Some ‘blissful’ days later, the new ‘bride’, discovered that her abusive husband was no better than a hard-core criminal and in reality was a trafficker of young, nubile girls … a pimp.

“Rekha! I married you for a reason. If you do not want to go back to your previous life you have to help me. You have to source sad little girls like yourself from your region,” smirked the sketally-thin Vikash viciously.

On that day, Rekha crushed all her faith in humanity, stifled all her hopes and emotions and agreed to help her ‘husband’, starting her new life of crime and hatred.

“Have you reached the station?” Rekha asked someone on the cellular phone.

Maloti was looking through the window, her eyes darting to and fro. It was mid-morning. Looking through her window, Maloti thought Delhi did not seem as grand as she had dreamt about; in fact it looked quite filthy and depressive.

Maloti wondered what was going to happen to her; all she knew was that she was going to work for an unknown family in a land so unknown to her. This thought brought on a great sense of unease and trepidation to little Maloti’s mind, she wanted to escape but she realized that she did not know how to.

The elderly couple smiled at Rekha.

“Has your husband come to receive you? My son is waiting for us at the station. If you want, we can drop you both at your destination”.

Rekha pretended not to hear him.

“The old man is becoming too nosy!” thought Rekha irritably. She wanted to get off from the train as soon as possible. For her, Maloti was now a nuisance who needed to be disposed away as soon as possible

Slowly the train pulled into the New Delhi Railway station, a familiar scene of hustle and bustle accosted Maloti’s sharp eyes.

Two men stood on the platform amongst the crowd, waiting patiently for Rekha and Maloti.

As Rekha and Maloti got down from the train, Rekha’s husband, Vikash came over to help them with their bags.

“Is she the one?” he asked. Rekha nodded silently.

Vikash asked, a little bit perturbed “Isn’t she too young?” Rekha did not reply back; she thought his question bore no relevance. After all she herself was only sixteen when she, herself, was auctioned off.

Her heart beating fast, Maloti looked around the huge sea of people surrounding her, trepidation choking her heart.

“Maloti, this is your new employer. You have to go with him now. We will come to visit you in the evening,” Vikash said, his smile ingratiating.

Maloti looked at the person standing next to Vikash. A pot-bellied man stood smiling at her, his oily hair slicked and parted in the middle.

Maloti almost fainted in terror….. “Rekha Pehi, can’t I come with you?” cried Maloti, her face now wet with unchecked tears “I will work for you. I know how to cook and to wash clothes…”

Maloti felt like a mouse caught in a trap, her instincts told her that she was in an ominous position.

Rekha shook her head firmly. “We live in a place far away from where you are going to stay and work. Don’t worry! There will be little girls like you over there…… I promise! I will come in the evening…” stressed Rekha, her lips curved in an assuring smile belying her hidden irritation.

Resigned to her fate, Maloti stifled her silent screams and walked towards the pot-bellied man wordlessly. The man extended his hand and grasped her tiny hand tightly.

Maloti, without a protest, slowly walked out of the platform with the pot-bellied man. Maloti could not bear to look back at Rekha least she lost her nerve.

Rekha stood transfixed, a frozen figure, staring at Maloti’s receding back till her vision became blurred with salty tears. Maloti finally disappeared out of her sight, lost in the sea of people …

Maloti sat in a black-and-yellow taxi with the pot-bellied man, the man’s bulky frame squashing her in the car seat.

Suddenly she saw the Koka and Aita from the train getting inside a huge white- coloured car. Maloti craned her neck to get a better view and started to shout and cry, “Koka! Koka! Grandfather!”

The pot-bellied man caught her by the nape of her neck and pulled her inside. She could see the familiar dhoti-clad figure become smaller and smaller…“Koka! Help me!” Maloti whispered now, her body raking with sobs.

The old man was busy getting his bags into the car; he neither saw nor heard the cries of little Maloti driving away in the taxi with the unknown man to her unknown fate and destiny.