I MET A YOUNG  WOMAN a few years ago. She had come to New Delhi and had found a job as an assistant in a small shop. She was also in love and her conservative family had come around to accepting her adult choice of a life partner. They were coming to Delhi the following month to formalize her wedding. She was looking forward to it, since single lodgings in the city tended to be shabby, solitary and dreary. “Please do come for my engagement ceremony,” she entreated, as her eyes lit up with excitement.

I assured her of my participation and left my phone number with her so that she could inform me about the date and the location. A couple of months went by but there was no phone call from her. Not seeing her on a subsequent visit to the shop I enquired about her. Her employer told me guardedly that she no longer worked there. On my insistent questioning, the harrowing details were divulged. A week before her supposed engagement, her family had marched into the city. Her mother and maternal uncles had forcibly dragged her back to the village with them. She had made a frantic phone call to her employer who offered her support. The phone call was cut short. When the employer tried to contact her again, she was told that the girl was returning to her village and would not come in to work anymore. The phone connection was also abruptly terminated. Meanwhile her beau visited the employer. He confided that he had been knocked off his bike on a couple of occasions and had subsequently received phone calls telling him these were warnings. His family was also threatened. There was no news of the ebullient girl who had wanted to chart her own destiny. [Read More]