Abhay

“Ill be back soon, okay?”

Telling Neitra I step out of the mansion and in my car.

"Why does she wants to meet me all of a sudden?" I think while connecting a call on the bluetooth.

"Tell her to wait in my office, I'll be reaching soon", I instruct the manager.

It takes me forty five minutes to reach office. And ignoring all the stares from my employees at my choice of wardrobe, I reach my cabin.

A woman dressed in white saree comes into my view.

"Radhika ji?"

She turns back to my voice and stands.

She isn't the only one, she is also accompanied by two lawyers.

"No, please have a seat", I say settling onto my CEO chair.

Radhika settles on the chair in front of me, dressed in a white saree. No nuptial chain or hint of vermilion is visible on her. Perhaps she has accepted her new life with all her heart.

"Hello Mr. Nair."

A thin smile of strength and resilience stays on her calm face. The bruises near her eyes and that on her neck, now disappearing. Indicating that she is finally at peace. She is healing.

"I had to give you this", she passes me a broad rectangular envelope.

I look at her confused and retrieve some documents from the end of the envelope.

Land papers?

My eyes widen. It's signed on my name now. And her signature lies below the donor's signature written  in italics.

"Radhika ji has signed her twenty eight acres plot, on the Delhi Gurgaon Expressway, to your name, sir", her lawyer says.

"Her?" Didn't the plot belong to Ashok?

"Tax benefit", she answers my question with a tight lipped smile. "Most of the property is on my name because government demands less tax if a woman owns the property."

The more I hear about Ashok the more my blood boils. He never stopped using people for his own benefits.

Till his last breath.

In presence of my lawyers we sign the deal and when they are leaving my office, I stop Radhika ji for a minute.

"Radhika ji?"

She nods.

"Are you okay?" I ask.

I can't imagine the type of looks she would have to and is tolerating because of her husband, who is held guilty and declared as a fugitive.

"I have never been more fine", she smiles softly. "Thank you for your concern Mr. Nair. And say my thanks to Dr. Neitra. She came like a goddess for me."

I nod. "Remember me if you need any help."

"I don't think I'll be needing it any time soon. I'll be leaving this country today evening."

"Really?" I ask. It would be better for her honestly. Away from all these toxicity.

"Yah. He or she needs it."

I look at her confused, he or she?

And then I watch her looking at her belly with pure love. Realisation hits me hard. It wasn't a wife or a woman who finally decided to fight against a man.....it was a mother.

I mentally thank the circumstances that had that man wiped out from this world. What kind of father would he ever become?

Radhika finally takes her leave and I watch the plot papers in my hand. Finally! I win.

Smiling I turn back to my desk to keep the papers safe in my secret locker.

But then as I pull the drawer I see Neitra's diary lying abandoned there.

Would I be invading her privacy if I take a look of it?

I have asked this question to myself a million times since I found her diary. And each time stepped back from turning its pages.

I'm sorry Neitra.

I say before I sit down with the hardback and flip the yellow pages of it.

The diary opens with a beautiful picture of little Neitra dressed as a doctor for a fancy dress competition, probably for standard one.

Cute!

I feel a big smile rising on my lips and it makes my heart swell with a different kind of emotion. Kissing the picture I tuck it into my wallet.

Flipping the pages of her diary, I reach the first page of it. It begins from the year 2012. Neitra would probably have been...... seventeen?

12th February, 2012

Dear diary,

Today was my last day at school. It was emotional, maybe even a little memorable too. We were given many trophies and engraved mementos. I received three of them for a splendid academic success throughout the years.

But again, like all those events at school, I sat at the back seat, alone and lonely. Watching all other kids with their parents taking pictures and praising them.

"Where are your parents Neitra," the teacher had asked me while giving me my medals.

"Would be coming soon," I lied to avoid the shame. And even pretended to look towards the gate so that she would think someone would be coming.

I know all the excuses, I am used to it. Might be that my father again got caught up in a busy schedule. And my mother again got busy with my three year old brother.

Not that I expect her to be with me because I never knew my mother didn't love me until my brother came.

It felt choking while I controlled my tears with a bunch of people around.

I want to go home.

But where's home?

I need a home.

I need a home.

The line leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Imagine having a home and yet not being able to call it a home.

The first page itself is enough of arrows to my heart. My heart where Neitra lives.

Neitra didn't journel regularly but whatever days she wrote it in her diary, were probably the days she hurt the most.

27th March, 2012

Dear diary,

Never knew that mom would hit me now as well. She didn't touch me since my brother arrived. I thought maybe she had changed but I was wrong.

It's Holi today. I wanted to play it with Shashank. I carried him to the garden and we had a lot of fun too. But then mom caught us.

"Don't you have brain?" She shouted at me in front of everyone for taking Shashank out without her permission.

She was again angry at me today. After so long.

She didn't care that people were looking at us. I felt horrible, I felt ashamed. But she still kept slapping me and pulling my hair until our neighbour had to intervene.

It felt degrading at an age of seventeen.

Why does she hate me so much?

My cheek hurt and my scalp stings. I wish I had a home where no one would hit me.

I need a home.

My eyes burn with the weight of unshed tears. How much pain could a child have endured?

Out of one hundred and twenty pages of her diary, one hundred and two pages contain a line that can easily break a person reading it.

"I need a home."

That's how lonely she sounds.

I inhale deeply. Probably to derive some strength to read further.

21st April, 2012

Dear diary,

Since a few days I am struggling with a poor sleep cycle and bouts of anxiety. As the date for my pre medical test is approaching, the speed with which my legs shake, is also increasing.

Although I have prepared well, this constant feeling in the pit of my stomach is making me believe on the contrary.

I am scared.

But I don't know how to address this feeling. I need to talk to someone, and this is sole reason behind me starting to write diary. But still I don't recieve any comfort.

And this is why ten minutes ago I went to mom, thinking that she would listen to me.

There is something about this mind that always seeks refuge from hearts that hurt us. I knew somewhere, mom would ignore me this time as well, perhaps even hit me to shut me up. Still that little flame of hope made me walk upto her.

She pretended to listen to me, but actually she wasn't. I told her how scared I was but she kept humming my brother to sleep.

I waited twenty minutes at the door for her to respond. She didn't. Nor did she stop me from going.

Till what extent further can her mother stoop low? How can she hurt her own baby? Wasn't Neitra a piece of her too?

Why couldn't she love her?

Oh how I wish I could tear this diary and be present in front of her. I would have hugged her so tight, protecting her from all the evil.

20th June, 2012

Dear diary,

It has been a month since I sat for my medical entrance exam.

All the efforts and hardwork finally seems to payback.

I went out with Prashant to my favourite spot to celebrate my results. I had secured an AIR of 92.

"You'll finally be leaving this place," he said sitting on stairs of Assi Ghat. He appeared too happy and sad at the same time. Perhaps he was the only who would be affected with my absence.

"I'll take IMS BHU. I don't want to leave Kashi," I could easily secure a seat from the domicile quota.

He scolded me. And said that it was the last chance to be away from this hellhole.

But how do I explain it to him. Changing surroundings scared me and the thing that I don't know how to make friends scares me even more.

How would I even survive.

Prashant and I talked some more and attended the Sandhya aarti, I even saved some Prasad for Shashank, he was sneezing since a few days.

I returned home a little late that day.

"What time is it to return home?" My mom again shouted at me.

Dad was there too. But busy comforting little Shashank who wasn't able to breathe properly.

I told mom that I went to Mahadev to pray for my brother. Her expression immediately softened and she touched my cheek.

"Don't come this late okay?" She said softly and I nodded getting a little too happy at her love filled gesture.

She fed Shashank the laddu I brought from the temple.

I am happy now as well, as I'm telling you this, perhaps I have found a way to make mom happy. She loves me when I do something for Shashank.

I'll make him a sweater tomorrow. She'll be the happiest.

She loves me, it's just that Shashank needs a little bit more attention.

But a voice in my heart says, she didn't give attention to you when you were a child too.

I didn't even know the tears that were blurring my vision are coming down in droplets, wetting the pages of her diary and spreading the ink all over.

Neitra's voice echoes in my mind from the night we spent at Kashi. How her parents were so happy when she used to get good grades which made her work harder each time.

Does that woman even knows how much damage she has created? My hands fist on the diary in rage.

Neitra's diary soon is turning into a guide. A guide for 'new parents on how not to treat your child.'

Noone deserves it.

Noone.

The further pages of this diary are filled with Neitra making efforts to get her mother's love and how she fails every single time.

The manipulation really worked wonders that I want to clap at the intentions of her mother.

What a shame she is.

In another page she has even justified her mother's heinous act of foeticide, that's how desperate she was for her mother's love.

'People are free to have expectations, there's nothing wrong if my mother wanted a son instead of me.'

I read the line again and again.

The entire diary is filled with her trauma, that only contains one year of her life.

And she has been living this life since the day she was born. Oh how I curse myself for her calling her rude and cold hearted.

And now I get, why is she, the way she is.

The next few pages were left blank but then I flip to the second last page of the diary that leaves me paralysed.

19th September, 2012

Dear diary,

I know we haven't met in a while and seriously......there's nothing left to say. I have finally come to a conclusion, happiness wasn't meant for me.

Everything is over!

Everything.

The nightmares won't stop. I wake up in the middle of night screaming, all alone in my hostel room.

Why did 'he' do this to me?

I begged my mother to not invite him to my birthday party, he didn't make me feel good. But she never listens to me.

The pen isn't working on the sheet while I'm writing this, the constant tears makes the page tearable.

After the party got over that day, he came into my room. And within seconds he was all over me, touching me the way he always did since I was a child.

I screamed, but he had locked the door. I bit on his palm with which he covered my mouth only for him to slap me back till my mouth bled.

I felt nauseous.

I felt terrified.

"I'll have you naked princess." He said venomously.

And he complied.

He had me naked. In front of him.

He grabbed my chest with his one hand while his other continue to rip my clothes off.

"Please stop. Please."

I tried to save myself, but he was deep consumed in alcohol.

He had me naked.

I see the letters dance blankly.

She was......no no no no she ..no.

Desperate for answers I turn the pages harshly.

It doesn't stop. It doesn't stop to hurt.

No matter how hard I slash my skin with bloody shaving blade. The inner pain doesn't stop.

please take me away. Please it hurts. Why doesnt anyone love me? Why am I so hateable?

No no no you're not hateable no....how do I ...how do I.

Neitra?

Her slashed breasts come in front of my eyes. Noone knew what she was suffering from, noone. She was into self harm and noone noticed.

I finally reach the last page of the diary and as I complete it, it leaves my hand effortlessly.

Neitra tried to kill herself!

He nearly hanged herself to death!

Oh just stop!

I curse my brain so that it stops giving me images a lifeless Neitra swinging on the ceiling.

I step away from the diary as if it burnt me. A sudden mix of emotions grope me leaving me breathless.

Was Neitra .....raped?

Her smiling face comes in front of my eyes suddenly.

As the helplessness leaves, anger takes over me and I begin to thrash everything that comes in my hand. The glass, the chair, the mirror, the files. Everything.

My Neitra tried to kill herself.

My Neitra was sexually assaulted.

Neitra?

My hands freeze. Neitra. I need to see her. Now.

Wiping my eyes, I grab her diary. My car runs on the road exceeding every speed limit that comes.

Who was he, whom she talked about?

My heart begins to thump wild. She is safe, she is safe. The vision of the road starts to blur. I need to see Neitra. I need. To.

Not caring about my ringing phone, I dash towards my room.

Neitra stands in front of me, momentarily confused as she looks at me from top to bottom.

"Who was he?" I raise the diary in anger.

She pales.