The Molki Bride: The Fight For Existence-An Indian Mafia Romance

Chapter 5: Vijaya

Back home I had been a farmer. Well, a landless one. That, and the occasional cleaning lady of our village clinic. That was where I had met Malini madam.

When I had first met her, she was telling my mother off for making me work. Didn't she know that child labour was a crime in the country? My mother had smiled and taken her to our village where every single household practised child labour. There was no other option. God has given children, so God will take care of them, was a blatant lie.

Malini madam had returned the next week, going from door to door, urging the families to send their children to school.

You know what happened? Not a single child went.

Why?

Well, first, because the school was three miles away. And the most important reason? Who would earn wages if the children went away to study? And what was the use of studying anyway? They have to work for food anyway.

The next persuasion came as an adult education centre which was held at our panchayat ground. Well, that had changed precious few opinions about school and children. But you know why I fancied different? Because among those precious few who had changed their minds, had been my mother.

Malini madam has seen me grow up. I hadn't been brilliant at studies or anything. Very, very average, but for some reason, she had taken extra care of me. And when our neighbours' daughters have gone missing over the years, it was Malini madam who had warned my mother. Told us about how they took young girls and sell them. Sometimes in different countries and other times within the country. To work as maids, if one was really lucky, others as brides, yet others as sex workers, with no difference between the latter.

Nope, there is difference. I know that now. They also made you work the fields, rear the cattle, and every other house work there is.

No, I haven't been anyone's bride yet. Apparently, there has been a delay in taking our delivery. I was still stuck at my mud hut. But the good thing was I wasn't alone anymore. I had three more room mates.

They came just over a week ago. And none of them had tried to escape like me. They were smarter than that. These people had successfully broken them.

Two of them had been married before and one of them, Kamala, had a child. She had had it when she was serving her second husband. The family kept the child and sold her off when her husband died.
She was an oldie in this business having been sold four times already. But she still didn't know who was her seller. My theory was that anyone who didn't want her could be her seller. For, we are pennies on the street now. Anyone can pocket us.

We had no identity anymore, no family, no friends. We were nothing but slaves and wombs to people who bought us. We were nothing but objects.

Anyone can use us anyway they wanted.

We were molki.

Only a while ago, I had prided myself on being smart. I had told myself that I have my mother's intuition, I had thought I was too clever. But a month of slavery has put paid to those notions I had about myself.

After I had healed a little, I had tried to escape again. I had figured if I could lose myself in the fields that stretched to the horizons in the dark of the night, I can escape. How foolish was I?

.
I had not even made it two steps from the hut before I was taken to the stable and beaten again.

After that incident they hadn't taken any chances. I have been spending my nights with bound hands and feet ever since.
When I had refused to work the fields, I got my feet burnt. They pressed hot coal on my feet and then made me work. Very effective technique to make anyone obedient.

What a fool I have been. Why didn't I comply from the start? What was I still hoping for? Defiance will only bring misery; didn't I know that already?

A prod to my buttocks took me out of reveries. One of the men who always guarded us were standing behind me with a gag and ropes at ready. Wordlessly, I extended my arms and he bound my wrists. I winced a little, I was pretty sure my left arm had fracture. But I have got so used to pain all over my body that I couldn't differentiate the pains anymore.

After securing the gag, he took one end of the rope tied around my waist and hauled me forward like cattle. Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw the other women emerging from the fields around me.
We were led to an outhouse away from the main house, in the middle of fields. It was little more than a large shed with a tin roof. We were shoved inside.

It wasn't just the four of us anymore. The shed was crowded.
It was filled with about twenty women of all ages and shapes, all of them a picture of abuse. There was one with a bandage over one of her eyes.

We were made to stand in a line against the wall. Men stood over us, their menacing presence preventing any thought of escape.
The other part of the room was full of men sitting on plastic chairs. It was clear that these men were from all the strata of the society. There were perfectly groomed men wearing rich traditional clothes, to men who wore dhoti above their knees with gutka stain on their teeth. In the middle, in his own ornate chair, sat the old man.

When the last of us had taken her place in the line, the old man spoke.
"You all know why you are here. Let's not stand in ceremony. Let the auction begin."