I stood at the airport, watching them walk away, not knowing when or if I’d see them again.
They scurried, fidgeted, navigating their way towards the boarding gate. Their flight would depart in less than an hour, and I whispered a silent prayer, that they make it to Mumbai safely, before their world woke up.
Dawn cracked as I drove back home, and it all seemed like yesterday. When the spouse got transferred far away from the city to the hills. The fresh air and the clouds brought in the much-needed change, from a family and society that had labelled me barren.
The little cottage, a gardener, and a cook; my luxuries. The old gardener was the kindest soul, chatting, laughing and helping all day. He loathed our cook though, a young lad, going about his business silently.
“Nobody likes him Didi. He lost his parents early on, to an anti-rebellion shootout by the police. They say, he works for the rebel faction too, against the Sarkar.” The gardener warned.
Indeed, the boy was constantly on phone, talking furtively to someone. He would cut the call the moment he sensed me around.
When I had almost readied myself to fire him, uncle gardener arrived with some relief.
“He was caught Didi, for aligning with the militant group. The police have him now.”
Good riddance, I sighed.
Come twilight, when I thought I was opening the door to my husband, it was the boy.
“Why are you here?” I barked.
“To cook?” He shrugged. I could see the marks of Police brutality.
“No, leave. I don’t want to be associated with a rebel.” I almost closed the door.
“Don’t know what the scheming old man told you, but my parents were murdered by my mother’s family for marrying into a lower caste. I was all alone, left to perish. If it wasn’t for my friend, who gave me food and place in his outhouse, I wouldn’t have made it. You know, the gardener’s son.”
Somehow, I let him go on.
“We fell in love Didi, we are inseparable. But the village folks, his father, they won’t let us survive. That old man knows, he got me arrested on false charges, he might get me killed too.”
Initially I thought of seeking my husband’s help, but it was futile. Given his homophobia, his raw hatred. The boy’s fate was sealed.
Night fell, and quietly making my way to the bathroom, I dialled his number.
“Will your lover abandon his family for you?”
He answered in affirmative.
“Then meet me here, in an hour.”
The morning flight from their town to faraway Mumbai got booked in a jiffy and they arrived, placing their faith on me. I drove them in the dark of the night, and now they had flown. To freedom.
The village would wake up to their disappearance, the gardener would be heartbroken. But as a survivor of societal judgement myself, I knew. I had done right.
