Her eyes gleamed brighter than the pretty gold ring shining on her frail finger. She stared at it in shock and awe, examining her finger from different angles and muttering in utter excitement, “This is for me didi? Really! This gold ring is for me?” I nodded with affection, my mind still recoiling from the fact that this nubile girl, all of 16, was about to get married in two days. She hugged me with all her might.. wailing bitterly, telling me how she never ever thought or expected to wear anything in gold for her wedding. And before I could react to Dipali’s sudden burst of emotions, she mumbled something I will never forget.

***
“You know didi, I am an…illegitimate..child. My mother was ostracized by her community, for marrying a man who was already married. But she didn’t know better na? She was young, alone and helpless. Her husband had left her. So when my father promised her the moon she reached for it with both her hands.” Her head was still on my chest, her tears soaking through my t-shirt and my now heavy heart, as she continued spilling her life on me.

***

“Dad was a very bad man didi. He used to drink every day and beat my mother and me with anything that his hands found.”
My grip on her tightened; she went on. “I still remember didi, I was five when he hung my mother from the ceiling fan and kept beating her with a rod till she fell unconscious. He then took down her lifeless body and threw it out of the door. I was inside crying bitterly. So he shut the door tight and laid me on the floor. He sat on my body and tried to do something very bad to me. I was screaming in pain so he put his hand over my mouth.”

***
My grip loosened at this point. I should have reacted violently, instead my body went numb. As I pulled her away from me, I felt my flushed face get wet.
“Were you raped Dipali?” I asked.
“No! No didi! The neighbors rescued me and my mother in time. Then she threw him out of the house.”
“Good for you and your mom.” I said. “Then?”
“Then nothing; few years later my brother also tried to rape me. My mother threw him out of the house too.” she laughed innocently.
“Brother?”
“Yes! From my mom’s first husband.”
“So now?”
“Now they all are coming for the wedding. And you know, my shameless, good-for-nothing father said if I want to save face in front of my in-laws, I should send him a train ticket or else he will not come. “
I should have probably snapped at the point when he tried to rape her, instead I went ballistic hearing this.
“Are you mad? Why do you want those monsters at your wedding? Keep them away,” I said.
“No didi, you don’t understand. If this will happen my in-laws will curse me for the rest of my life. As it is my mother-in-law is already cursing that I am not giving any dowry.”
“Dowry? Tell those goons I will report them to the police. As it is you are underage, I can send them all to prison.”
“No! No didi please. My mom will die if something like that happens. That’s why you please don’t come for my wedding ok?”
“No not ok.”
“Please didi.” She hugged me tight again.

***
I hugged her back, afraid to let her go, lest she should get raped again; by her husband, by her four brothers-in-law; by the mother-in-law that was going to parade the memoirs of her wedding night to her entire family in the morning.
The deal was pretty simple. More blood on the sheets meant a bigger gift for her and a special place in her husband’s heart. On the other hand, no blood would mean a lifetime of taunts and perhaps abandonment too.

***
So while Dipali’s untainted body and mind trembled at the thought of the public display, and the horrific stories that she had heard from her married friends of how they had almost fainted with the pain, I wondered in horror, “Should I have gifted her a bottle of fake blood instead?”

***
After all what good would a  two gram gold ring do? It would not be enough to wipe away the heaviness that Dipali had carried in her heart all these years. It would never be enough for the greedy, archetypal mother-in-law, and neither would it be enough for Dipali to fall back on, if God forbid she was abandoned by her husband.
My two grams were worth nothing.
Except that, a tiny ring had unlocked a story that had never been shared before.

Insia Dariwala is a graduate from F.I.T New York (Advertising and Mass communications), loves to tell stories and is a filmmaker. ‘The Candy Man’  (www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSr0ne-iizs) her hard hitting debut film on child abuse won her two ‘Best Director’ awards in India (2009, 2010) and also got nominated at Barcelona International Film Festival and the New York Short film Festival in 2010.