An Insignificant Someone: A Short Story

Roha's body was calm. As calm as it could ever be. It has been hours since her body was fished out of the Ganges by the morning villagers who had came to bathe in the river. There was quite a crowd around her wet, mum, carcass basking under the sun.

Roha's father Chotan Das was sitting besides her gazing constantly at the dormant body without slightest bit of emotion in his eyes as if he has lost all of his feelings along with his only daughter. Topa Das, Roha's mother, was crying considerably. She was in pain, yes, she was. The last time she met Roha was during DurgaPujo, Roha had went to her Baper Bari  (father's home), when she had shared about her miserable state, that her husband Susnath Manzi and his mother used to torture her and even used to threaten to kill her. She had also said to Topa that she was thinking to lodge a police complain against her in-laws.

Topa knew the inside tales of Roha's married life, and maybe so the whole village, but it's unlikely anybody would speak up against the rich and prominent in-laws of Roha.

Topa had no idea that it would turn out so ugly for her daughter. However, she knew that nothing went right for her 17 year old only child after she was married to the 42 year old, wealthiest businessman of the village Susnath. She was beaten, abused, and raped by her husband and was even being used as a commodity of entertainment for his rich and powerful friends.

Yes, Roha had told her all, but ah! She could do nothing, but console her daughter to live with the sin of being a woman, being an insignificant someone and pushed her back into the hell she was destined to endure.

But how did Roha died?  She might have killed herself, or she was killed by her in-laws. Topa did not know. So what if she would? Is anything is going to change?

Roha's body, was being taken to be cremated. She was wrapped in a red sari, with vermilion on her forehead. The bruises in her body were still visible, but nobody dared to mark that. Topa's tears have dried now, she is standing all alone there by the side of the Ganges watching the crowd take away her daughter far away somewhere, maybe to the place where she will be free from all the pain she had to live with.