Sunday, February 14, 2010

The Girl Who wasn’t born….

I d started workin on this one months back…. Almost like a sequel to ‘Being ME’ coz its on the same lines…. You might find it banal… but anyways I jus decided to post it… J

Here goes:

The Girl Who wasn’t born….


I am Razia… age 22

Happily married to a wonderful human being who loves me, cares for me…
I live @ Dubai with my husband… n we r very glad… we are expecting a little one very soon…. In 7 months, to be exact…

After few more months, I will be going home…

But.. I do not want to go home… I am safe here,  I am happy here…

Going back to India… to Kerala… brings back memories….

I don’t want those…

The nightmares….which I still have… the faces which haunt me….

And to think that I have not been able to tell Siraj the whole of it..

I have been forbidden to…. I will get killed if I do so…
Killed..yes, it may surprise u… killed by whom???

My father n my brothers…

No, they do not hate me… they have nothing against me…. As long as I heed their words n keep mum…

I am not supposed to think of the past…
I am not supposed to speak of it…


I had been married, once…before all this….



I was 18.. fresh out of college…
I hadn’t thought my family would allow me to complete my degree… they did eventually… owing to my threats…

The last time a guy came to see me, I refused to go home… from the hostel…
My father and brothers came @ night to carry me off…


I liked Riyaz… Well.. I guess I did..… Ours was of course an arranged marriage… and I hadn’t got to talk to him until the wedding day… well, wedding nite…actually…

The elders decided everything… I jus got dressed… had lots of fun as I was the centre of attraction..everywhere….

No, I was not tht naïve as u think I was… I had been to college too…n I had many friends too… I knew what the first night was all about…

And Riyaz was just 23… a few years older than me… we experimented… we had fun… We were both kids….

2 weeks after our wedding..Riyaz had to leave… back to Saudi, where he worked… There were some problems with my visa and I stayed back…

He told me he would be back within 2 months to take me… yes, that was his word….

I missed him… yeah…strange… I felt so too… A man I d barely known for a couple of weeks n I was already missing him…

I was scared before my wedding… but then I knew…His absence told me what I wanted to know…Riyaz was the one for me…
I loved him….

A week later, I found out that I was pregnant...
I do not remember how I felt…

I was still a child… N here I was, with a child within me… I barely had time to get to know its father….

It is in those months… that I grew up…

Riyaz used to call me daily… we talked…we decided upon names for our little one…


I was the happiest woman on earth… young, in the prime of life… and my eyes full of dreams….

And then it came…. The Phone call…..

Riyaz…. Dead…. Accident… car… thts all I remember… thts all I know… I wasnt told anything more….
I din want to know then… n by the time I wanted to know, no one was ready to tel me anything….

I was with child… except for a few tears… I din do anything much…. I knew I had to think of my baby… our baby… It would be a HE, I know…. Like my Riyaz…
my Riyaz… who seemed more like a dream then….

I felt guilty… I felt sad… Oh.. why couldn’t I have been with him when it happened??? Mayb Allah wanted me to live on… with our kid…

Many people know the story… till this…. What happened next is unknown to all… They all believe I had an abortion….They were told so…Owing to my grief… I was given an year to recuperate n then I was sold…. To Siraj… I do not have anything against Siraj… He is a perfect gentleman.. He loves me… N I love him too… Yes, I do….

I say I was sold to Siraj coz I was loaded with gold, more than I was adorned with the first time… coz I was second hand…. My In laws were ready to forget bout the past if they were supplied with an extra 25 kgs of gold….

I haven’t ever thought of ending my life… I haven’t ever been fed up… coz I believe I am supposed to go thru all this… I am ready to accept things as they are…

But there is one thing I can never forget… one thing I can never forgive myself for….

My daughter…. She d be 3 yrs old now…. Alive, I hope… no, I m sure….
With adopted parents… or stuck in an orphanage… N I m sure she must hate me when she comes to know how she came to be there….

I still remember the dreaded day…. After I gave birth to her…. My father n brothers tried to lie to me… they told me I d given birth to a still born baby…
But then, something in me told me … my baby still lives on.. I wanted to catch a glimpse…. I begged them…. Fell at their feet… until they allowed me to hold her… just once… after which they would take her….

To an orphanage… far away… they had arranged it all before hand….

My youngest brother felt pity for me and allowed me to go along… a week after my delivery… my baby was in the incubator till then… she was a premature baby… n was weak… I remember the look in her eyes when I held her… the wrinkled face…. The pink tissue…. She jus looked like a mass of tissues… pink tissues…. I was sacred to touch her… for fear I would hurt her with my touch….
I don remember who she looked like… in a week’s time, you cant ever say tht….
But she was the only reminder of my past life….. of a nightmare which but I do not want to forget…. I held her tight… close to my bosom… No power on earth was ever going to separate me from her, tht was jus wat I thought….

She was taken away… from my hands… N I was pushed away…. I remember my last thought before I fainted away… I could have killed her… tht made more sense than putting her in an orphanage… There were Sisters all around… it was a Christian missionary place… I do not know where….n they were consoling me… they told me my daughter is going to be happy there… they would take care of tht…

I do not know where my daughter is now…. I do not know if I want to know….
I do not know if I m happy… or am I jus tryin to be happy???? For Siraj’s sake…..

I am pregnant again… How wil I love this child knowing another one of my babies is out there??? Alone… in this big bad world….

I know Siraj loves me, but whether he loves me enough to find my baby… I do not know.. I dare not speak of this to him….

And thus I live….
As each day passes…. My daughter grows older….

And my hopes for finding her diminishes….

I live in dread….. what if the person who walks by next to me on the street is actually my daughter???

[ I know the last line is copied… repeated frm one of my earlier posts…
But I don think it can be said in any way better… ]