#FindingFreedom

Once the sun set and the night fell, the small wooden house in the village came to life. The air around the place was filled with the smoke of bhang ki patti as they called it in the pahads, or weed as they called it everywhere else. There was music from the 70s playing in the background, Kishorda ruling the playlist.

The smell of the delicious food mixed with alcohol reached the neighbors downhill, but no one spared it a second thought; everyone in the village knew about this house and the residents. Three women lived in ‘the godforsaken place’, as the villagers called it. It was the one place which had managed to break the societal barriers and gone beyond the ideas of right and wrong, set by the community. Harsha Devi, Rama Devi and Shalu Devi, the three women in their late 20’s were not like the typical pahadi women of the village.

They were different, because they chose liberation over suffocation. Harsha, 29, was the eldest of the trio. She was tall and tanned due to working in the fields. She had an appealing figure, but it was the confidence she exuded that was sexier. She had eyes that could dominate any men. Despite people not liking her way of living, nobody could ever question her of the same. She was evidently the leader of the female wolf pack. But she was not always this way, when she first came to the village she was a 16-year-old naïve, young woman excited to start her wedded life. But, it was only three years of bliss. They had a son together and the couple was very happy. But, one day, her husband left for the city to find a job as farming did not bring them enough money. He settled there with another woman; he claimed women in the city knew better how to make men happy in bed and after giving birth to her son, Harsha was unable to do so. Everyone blamed her, said she could not keep her husband for herself. Her parents did not accept her back home and her in laws left for the city to live with their son and new daughter in law. They even took her son with them. The poor woman was left behind, alone, with nothing but the house, fields and a cow.

Harsha Devi could not take the blow; she let all her inhibitions go and had her first affair with a cousin of her husband. Since then, she never committed herself to one man and she changed them as the crop seasons changed. With experience, she was getting better in sex. Men who slept with her once would not be satisfied with any other woman in the village. And yes, she never slept with anyone for money, making it even more difficult for men to woo her. She lived alone because she was happier in her own company than around the ones who judged her.

Even if she had an affair, the man she was with would come to her only in the evenings, where she would satisfy her physical needs. She had become cold towards life and love; she never needed anyone to cuddle her after climaxing.

Once she came, she needed a glass of tea and some jaggery; while the man slept inside, she would sit on the porch staring at the skies and sipping her hot beverage. Years passed and one day when she was seated in her porch making bhang nun (a type of salt made using bhang seeds, edible salt and spices), a woman in her early 20s came to her doorsteps. She was Rama, the daughter of Bisht ji who lived near the temple. She was going to get married next month; at least that was what she had heard while fetching wood from the jungle with the other ladies.

“Pranam di, Tum Kash cha? (How are you)", said Rama entering the house. Harsha pointed at the mortar and pestle. She was not very fond of visitors, she asked the poor Rama of why she was there at the very minute she entered her premises. “I am getting married next month”, said Rama, staring at the floor.

“Are you here to invite me for your wedding?” “Yes, and”, she stopped in between, giggling to herself. “I do not have a lot of time, babu” said Harsha, trying her best to get rid of the visitor. “The girls in the village say that you know how to make husbands happy, I was hoping you could teach me”, she blushed. Her cheeks had become pink. Harsha laughed loudly.

Rama was confused, and she began to wonder if it was a bad idea to visit the woman after all. After a few minutes of laughter, Harsha gestured Rama to come sit next to her. “If I had known how to keep a husband happy, mine wouldn’t have left me here alone” Harsha said to Rama. “But, I know how to keep myself happy. Once you learn that, you can satisfy anyone”, she added. That was the first time Rama had had conversation with Harsha. She thought it would be her last but fate had something else in store.

Two years passed, and Harsha had completely forgotten about this incident. It was when Rama visited her again, that she remembered. “What happened to you? Is he tiring you so much every night that you lost so much weight?”Harsha asked mockingly. Rama was a changed woman now. She had become thin and weak. Her pink cheeks were pale and her eyes had sunken in. Her face no longer looked excited and blissful; it expressed distress. “What happened to you?” Harsha realized that something was serious. Rama sat next to her and started crying. She did not know why she was here to meet Harsha, but all she knew was that she could pour her heart out to her.

For the first time in the last two years, she cried, she cried till she knew her heart was light. Harsha held her hands and let her shed the tears. Though she did not know what was wrong, she could connect to her in a way that the other women in the village will not. “I was abused every day in that house; they hit me to an extent that I lost my baby in the fourth month of pregnancy. I left that house and came here last month; the sister-in-law doesn’t like me here. I want to be happy and you told me do what makes you happy, right?” Rama said, sobbing at intervals but her face looked much peaceful than before. “Yes” nodded Harsha Since then, Rama lived with Harsha.

They tended to the cattle, ploughed the field and sowed crops, collected firewood from the forests and did everything else that women in the pahads did. But, they did it out of their own will and were not forced into working by anyone. They did not have many responsibilities and they loved it. They would play cards in the afternoons and talk about their dreams of exploring the world and meeting tall, dark and handsome men. Rama’s family had stopped speaking to her as they thought she was having sex with random men like Harsha; but in reality Rama could not think of any man touching her after the turmoil she went through. She would only listen to Harsha’s fascinating stories about the men she had affairs with, now that Harsha was getting older she had less men on her radar, but she was still capable of luring them. In the night, the two used to light up a chillum and occasionally also drink if any of Harsha’s men got alcohol for her.

On one such afternoon, a group of men came to their house. They belonged to a government agency, which was providing help to the villagers in terms of good quality seeds, rain water harvesting tanks and fodder supplement for cattle to increase livelihood generation. Rama was eating a Mundhwa roti with homemade ghee, and she did not notice that her saree had slipped off the blouse and her cleavage was visible. Harsha saw it but did not react; she wanted to see the fun when Rama realised that her assets were at show to total strangers.

Of the three visitors, there was one tall, dark and handsome gentleman. He was definitely not from the mountains as he spoke in a different dialect altogether. Harsha noticed him turn away his face from Rama while the other two continued ogling at her. “Mundhwa roti khaoge sahib”, Harsha asked the strange man. He nodded in denial while the other two agreed to eat some. She asked Rama to go get some rotis from the kitchen. It is when she stood up that she realized that her pallu had slipped away. She was embarrassed and she rushed inside hoping that nobody had noticed the malfunction. When she came out with the rotis, she noticed Harsha flirting with one of the officers. She ignored her and walked to the stranger to hand him some rotis.

The dark man took the roti from her hand and smiled at her and he could not stop but stare at her beautiful brown eyes. Rama blushed as their hands touched and this was for the first time that a man’s touch did not bother her. Harsha, though she was busy enticing her new catch had noticed Rama’s cheek going pink the same way they were a few years back. “Get him along tonight” she told the officer Later that night, although Rama did not have sex with the stranger, she had a real conversation with a man for the first time in life. It was the beginning of a story for Rama. “Krishna is a God’s name”, she said, her head resting on his shoulders. “Yes”, he whispered Krishna used to visit Rama often. He was posted at the village for three years and that was enough time for him to fall in love with the pahadan. He was from Kerala and hardly spoke Hindi, but the two of them had started falling for each other. He was ignorant of Rama’s past and he wanted to be with her all his life.

Amongst all this, one day, a woman named Shalu Devi came to Harsha for help. She was a widow, a 26-year-old who lost her husband in an accident. She did not have any reasons to join Harsha; she just wanted to get away from the society who had started to annoy her with their rituals. “I just want to get away from the society which wants me to live like a lifeless object” she said and Harsha welcomed her with a smile.

As Shalu dressed herself in a bright saree and put on some lip color, she had tears in her eyes. She had been barred from grooming herself, eating good food and speaking to other men for 8 years. She was married at the age of 16 and within two years of her wedding her husband passed away. ‘What was my fault?’ she often thought to herself. She noticed Harsha and Rama when they joined the other women in the forests or river. They always looked happy, and they did not have any regrets with their life even if the rest of the world did not approve of it. She had once seen Krishna and Rama in the valley; he was holding her by the waist.

She never thought Rama would be happy again when she had learned of her failed marriage, and now she saw her fall in love with a man from a different culture. Though her own in-laws were kind and did not impose many restrictions on her at home, she had to follow the norms in public. She was missing out on life and one day gathered enough courage to walk out. She wanted to embrace herself and enjoy her life and Harsha was her answer.

For Harsha, the house where she was once left alone had started to become an abode for the women who were left distressed by the society. The three used to listen to music and enjoy the sunsets together, Krishna often joining them. The women were called names by the men; they were accused of running a brothel and luring young women to join them. But nothing bothered them. The Panchayat had no proof to punish these women and it was hard to go against a strong headed woman like Harsha.

The men spoke ill of them but the other women secretly wished they could set themselves free just like these three. Today was one of those days, when the three women celebrated their freedom with a little bit of Bhang and some Old Monk Krishna had left for them. They were sleeping under the stars and humming to ‘Abhi na jao chod ke, ke dil abhi bhara nahi’, hoping the night will not end and their lives will freeze in that moment forever, where they experienced freedom to the fullest.