The Veiled Chains

  How Suru had delighted when she got Jugni. Her happiness had known no bounds. She ran wild after Jugni, all around her Pradhan father's mansion. Through his cherished rose gardens, surrounded by perfectly rounded ficus trees, across the verandahs of marble floors, with walls adorned by paintings from decades before Suru's existence, sliding over the wooden floors beautified by the Persian rugs, swerving his many servants, carrying his fresh fruit juices, almonds and cashew nuts, those foods, Suru could never name.

However these wonders were nothing before those pitch black eyes belonging to Jugni, which Suru could stare into, for hours at a stretch, how clear, how innocent ! Her bosom would swell with love, brimming from her soul, for this little puppy, Jugni, wiggling her tail at everything in this world.

Her priceless bursts of laughter when Jugni would make a new sound, or run around with an excitement bestowed upon her from the heavens, resounded from the expensive walls of the house. Those sounds of the pair bespoke innocence, freedom and pure joy, a faint symphony fighting away the empty silence .

Every morning their verandah would be filled with villagers, kneeling down before her father,  waiting for their turn to recite their issues.

Pradhan Sahib, with the same stern look, wearing a khadi dhoti and kurta, would sit on his throne, as the pleaders would join their hands before him and wait for him to move his hands over his mustaches and pass the  verdicts. He was a figure, to be feared by all, but not for Suru. Suru was her father's favorite. He would pick her up, whirl her through the air, throw her upwards, and in those moments, when she would be mid air, a deadly fear would engulf her heart,  what if he didn't catch? But just then she would feel the warmth of his big, strong hands around her.

Suru's mother was shy, too shy. She never saw her lift that veil, that reached her chest. It was always made of expensive, handspun cloth, embroidered with silken threads and stones, but Suru always knew that the face that lay under the cover, was what actually represented the strength, the love, the care that her mother was capable of.  

It hurt Suru to see her elder sister turning into her mother. Suru had always been so amazed by how intelligently and boldly, she would voice her opinions, even contradicting her father sometimes. However, she wasn't the same anymore. Now, her tongue seemed to be tied and her words entangled somewhere in that knot, carefully guarded by her lips that remained shut.

" I can't do this", Suru heard a loud voice, a burst of anger and frustration mingled with a challenge to the world, a passionate rage burning everything in it's way. It seemed as though the voice had gone not to the ears but straight to her heart. How much pain, she thought. She quietly peeped into her sister's room to see what was happening. There she stood, her sister Somana, eyes looking loathingly at her mother, leaking the fire burning in her soul through her tears. Suru wondered if they burnt the skin of her cheeks. Her mother was trying helplessly, to calm her daughter down.

"Shh, don't be so loud, dear, your father would hear, he'd be mad ", her mother pleaded before Somana. 

"Please, child, listen to me, wear this veil", her mother continued crying and pleading, holding the veil in her hands. Her mother tried placing it over Somana's head. She jerked as it touched her.

"No maa, no, I  can't spend my life like you, I want to be seen, I want to be heard. Why do you have to chain me like this? ", she cried helplessly and sank to her knees.

Her mother ran to her precious burden on the floor, lifted her in her arms and hugged her.

"This is what happens to us, Somana. We are women, we can't be free forever, you are growing up my girl. This is the only reality there is. Please wear this. Your father wants you to wear this. Listen to me Somana, please", her mother said, wiping her tears with her dupatta, that ran around her shoulders and over her head, which would stay there till eternity, her punishment or protector, only her heart knew.

They cried out loud. Such hopelessness, such despair left their souls through the tears they wept. It was as though they wanted their cries, their wails to reach the world, if not their voices. But who were they? Just two veiled women crying at their fates.

Suru could hear no more. It was too much, too much for her to take in. She needed to calm down. She couldn't help thinking of her sister turning from Somana, to another voiceless, faceless veiled woman. 

She ran to Jugni, hoping that she would place her head in her soft fur, tickling her lips and nose, and all this would be over, just like a bad dream.

She ran around the house looking for her, every wall, every table, every chair sighed to her and her heart sighed to them in return. O, she had to find Jugni.

At last she ran into her father.

"What happened? Why are you running around like that Suru?", asked Pradhan Sahib.

"Jugni, I'm looking for her. I can't find her anywhere", she said , catching her breath and halting her wild heart.

Pradhan Sahib smiled and picked her up. He started walking towards the verandah, the place where justice was meted out to the villagers by her wise father.

"Jugni", she cried and ran towards her, when she saw her sitting under her father's chair. 

Jugni lifted herself with borrowed effort and walked towards Suru with heavy steps, contemplating at every step whether or not she had the strength to take another. Just when she was about to make it to Suru's hand, extended out to her, something pulled her back. Her entire body was shaken as she fell back due to the force of the chain, hanging or rather strangling her white, furry neck.

"She has run around the house a lot. She needs to know her place now. Anyways, look how beautiful the chain is, I can get it painted to a different color if you want",  said Pradhan sahib, slowly walking away, leaving Suru and Jugni at their 'places'.

Suru couldn't help seeing the chain. She sat there, with Jugni struggling and biting the chain, tied to the chair, in the verandah. She felt overpowered by the chair rising above her crouched figure and the justice of her father.

She was lost in the abysm of her thoughts. After a while she looked at Jugni, all curled up and  tired. Her eyes looked to a distance. 

Suru never saw Jugni struggling or biting the chains, again.