Social Short Story – MY 1ST ANNIVERSARY AT PILIIBHIT
Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com
What can be more shocking and lamentable irony that a 22-year-old college girl has been murdered when the entire world is celebrating the International Women’s Day? The girl was shot dead outside her college campus.
‘Oh gosh, it happened again in Delhi’, Trisha, told me after reading the newspaper, while I was busy in driving my Honda city on the national highway that led to Pilibhit. It is one of the forest rich areas of Uttar Pradesh, having a very high tourism potential. I had always enjoyed long drives to hill stations and forests, especially when Trisha was with me on the front seat and let her exhaled air go inside my lungs that commanded my brain and heart to adore her unconditionally.
Today, we were going to celebrate our 1st anniversary of relationship in Pilibhit that has been in news at national level because of a few sub-adult man killing tigers. I still remember the day, when I first saw Trisha in Patni Computers, Noida and we were attacked by the virus of love at first sight, usually happening in movies. Within weeks, we were dating each other and the beautiful Delhi girl Trisha had everything in her that a guy dreams. I took few more weeks to propose her and we were sailing in the sea of love, where every drop of water contained the essence of romance to make our journey perfectly romantic.
‘What happened baby!! Why you have become so sad after reading this newspaper, containing every day the same news of politics, corruption and crimes on women?’
I asked Trisha, after seeing her quiet and sad for the last 1 hour of our journey of 314 km. The remaining 5 hours of journey started appearing to me as a tough task to perform without my love’s sweet mood.
‘Mihir, I get really scared when I hear about all these incidents happening to the girls of my age in our Delhi. Recently, Delhi police released a report which revealed a shocking fact that a woman is raped every 18 hours or molested every 14 hours in the Capital. If that’s not shocking enough, most of the attackers fall under the below 25 age bracket. I just want to enjoy my life and with you around, I have achieved almost all the happiness of my life and want to continue enjoying it. I am scared for you baby. I don’t want you to suffer, if something bad happens to me due to the bad mentality of people of our cruel society.’
After hearing these words from my love, I became stagnant for few minutes. I had found my true love after a long period of time and losing her without my single fault was the worst dream, I would ever imagine happening. Today, Trisha presented me her new image that was more matured and real while talking with me. Finally, I had to change the serious topic to a romantic one and after few hours we were enjoying our long drive.
According to a report issued by the Government of India, Pilibhit is one of the Minority Concentrated Areas in India on the basis of the 2001 census data on population, socio-economic indicators and basic amenities indicators. This fact was appearing to be real to us, as we were close to reach our destination. We saw very few people in the area and most of them appeared to be below the poverty line. Our adventurous journey had already begun, as we were crossing through a narrow road in the dense forest leading to the hotel; I had booked for our stay in the Pilibhit.
It was a great experience to drive through the dense forest area. The essence of natural beauty of the forest was acting as a catalyst for us to love each other under the shades of those dark trees. The pleasing sounds from all types of animals and birds appeared to me as a welcome song, they were singing for us. I stopped the car in the forest and we started walking to enter the house of mother Earth and celebrate our anniversary. It was not the first time, that I was going to kiss Trisha, but our excitement level was at its peak, when we both started kissing each other and left our realm of romance to spread into the entire forest area. At that moment, I was feeling proud to have an engineer girlfriend, whose brain has made alignment with my brain and both of us were busy in inventing the best romantic kisses of the planet.
Oh gosh!! What the hell, I am doing in this old house?? Where is Trisha?? How I came here?? What happened to us, and where is my car?? Will someone tell me, what is going on here??’
I cried loudly, after finding my hands and legs tied by a rope to a pillar and seeing blood coming out from my head. I tried to remember that exactly what happened to us in the forest, when we were making love with each other. I hardly managed to remember the rod, with which I was attacked brutally on my head. We had been kidnapped and I was still confused to find the exact reason of kidnapping.
‘My father worked in a bank and my package of six lac would fetch nothing to the kidnappers, even if they kill me. Trisha’s dad was a doctor and it was the only reason, that we were kidnapped. Why on this earth, I loved a doctor’s daughter? And today, the worst dream of being kidnapped is happening with me. All thanks to that old fat man, who may become my father in law in future, if I was left alive here?’
All these thoughts were hammering my brain constantly, which was already hammered by a rod, few hours ago. Suddenly, I noticed my sweet baby Trisha, who was also tied behind me at a few meter’s distance. She was still unconscious and blood was coming out from her lovely lips. The blood from my sweetheart’s face made me to cry as loud as I could. I tried my best to break the rope and save my baby. I had decided to give even my life, which meant a lot to my parents to save my love. As I became fearless, my body appeared to be full of new energy and ideas in order to help us in escaping from this hell.
‘Don’t ever think of doing this bas*ard!
A woman cried loudly and hurried to me. Within seconds, we were surrounded by a dozen of women carrying guns in their hands.
‘Oh my god, I am kidnapped by a group of ladies. Now are they going to kill me? But why they have kidnapped us!
My mind was full of queries, as I looked towards them. Some women were damn good by looks and I had never imagined beautiful girls to be kidnappers. Pilibhit did not encounter me sub-adult killing tigers but yes, I had encountered the real lady maids of yamraaj, ready to send me to the almighty’s home.
‘Hey, what’s going on here ladies? Why you have kidnapped us and tied us with a rope? What exactly you people want from us?’
Trisha cried after getting a lit bit conscious and realizing the hell like situation surrounding us. I felt relieved after seeing Trisha in normal state. An old woman who appeared to be the leader of those ladies went close to Trisha and asked ‘is this guy your boyfriend?’ the lady slapped on my baby’s face as she responded and declared me to be her boyfriend. Tears started rolling off from my love’s beautiful eyes. It was becoming intolerable for me to see my sweetheart getting hurt and weeping in pain. I never loved to see women crying and today, I was tied to see the drops of tear rolling off from my baby’s eyes.
‘It hurts na when you get slaps on your face! But, the wound will fade away after some time and you will forget everything as a bad nightmare. Can you imagine the pain when someone slaps your soul and your soul slaps you every day to remind you the pain, it is suffering!! ?’
The old lady said to Trisha, with an essence of emotions coming out from her voice. The lady started talking with Trisha and she was comfortably replying her all queries. I was hearing their conversations, as I was not allowed to do any other thing at that time. Finally, I came to know about the mysterious ladies. All of them have suffered the crimes in past, we used to read in the newspaper. Some of the ladies were half burnt, as they had escaped luckily when they were burnt alive for dowry demands not being met by their in-laws. Some of them from metro cities were raped and were sold to the prostitution market.
The old lady named Reema was the wiser among the ladies. She was a Delhi university final year student, when she was raped by a group of drunken bas**rds. She was a brave lady and decided to take revenge. She already knew a lot about the police and law of our country, which was just made for the rich section of society to harass the weaker section. She started collecting information about the women, who have suffered the intolerable crimes and contacted them. She gave the women, a chance to live in dignity and peace. They formed a group and started living in the jungles of Pilibhit.
The group was active in the jungle for past 5 years now and every year their members kept increasing, with the enhancement of no. of crimes on women in Delhi and NCR. The main motive of these ladies was to make people realize about the pain, their soul have been suffering since years. So, the group started kidnapping the tourists and compelled them to suffer the pain, which has become the only ornaments of these ladies since years. It really helped to change the mindset of people, who realized the sufferings of these ladies. Most of the people have started to help them financially.
They have also taken several steps in changing the society to be a better and safer place for women. All of my queries related to our kidnapping were solved. I was feeling ashamed for the first time, as I saw the ladies whose inner wound was far intense than ours. Every woman had a different heart breaking tale written by the fate and every tale was blaming our own society for its existence on their lives. They had done their task and we were left to go motionless to our car. We reached the hotel after few minutes. I was seeing a new Trisha, who was ready to face all the challenges bravely. We had decided to give our best in changing the society of Delhi to a safer place for women. We got the best anniversary gift and celebrated our 1st anniversary in Pilibhit. We were going back to Delhi with an important task to furnish in the coming future.
‘History stands testimony to the fact that woman have been oppressed in our society.’
We have decided to remove this tagline from the society for our future generations.
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