“WOW! The bride is so beautiful!” Every one exclaimed with joy.

“This is a perfect Jodi (pair). The groom is so handsome and bride is so beautiful”. This was yet another lady in the crowd.

          Everyone was heaping praise on bride and groom. The bride had stars in her eyes. She was happy to the core. It was entirely new day in her life. Today she left behind her all relatives and was going to start a new life with a new family. Her friends were envious of her luck.

          Few days passed. The euphoria was dieing down. Most of the relatives had gone. And the bride was trying to be accustomed to the rules and regulations of the new house. She was all ears to her in-laws. She was trying to be nice to everyone. She was trying to take special care of mother-in-law and father-in-law.

          “Bahu (The bride) is very nice, very well behaved!!” exclaimed everyone. The beautiful was all smiling and thanked her stars.

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          But this was not her destiny. Destiny had cruel designs on her. The groom, who seemed cool and perfect, took no time in becoming beast. Strange was his behavior. He seemed having some psychological problems? Too much praise for bride made him uncomfortable. He asked her not to attend social gathering. The honeymoon time was over soon. The beast had to leave for the town he was posted in. He asked her to pack everything .The beast started attended office. The bride tried to involve herself in household matters and tried to forget everything. But guess…this was not going to happen. The beast’s elder brother was more involved in family matters, then any other male member of family, and this made him interact with the “beautiful” more often. This did n’t go well with the “beast”. He started suspecting her having illicit relationship with him. This resulted some tense moments at home. The elder brother had his own family so they shifted to another flat. This diffused the situation to some extent..

          The beast had a strong desire to have a Son, hence he forced her to conceive as soon as possible. She did, but this was not the end of her misery. In fact this was the starting. Even her god was not with her. She gave birth to a cute little baby girl. Everyone in the house hold was happy except the beast. This enraged him but he consoled himself.

 “O.k.! Next time” he said to himself.

But this “next time” never came.

 The beast was in the habit of visiting a religious GURU in an ashram on the outskirt of the city. He told his story and secret desire to the GURU. This man in the garb of guru, was a big fraud. He was a tantrik, who was cheating people for long time. This was a very good chance for him to trap this man for his entire life. So the first thing he did was to sow the seed of suspicion in beast’s mind. This is what exactly he did. He even told the beast that someone from household was doing some  magic on his wife so that she cud never gets to give birth a boy child.

This made an instant effect on the beast. He barred those relatives, whom he did n’t liked, from coming to his house. Initially people resisted his tantrums but slowly all became silent leaving poor lady to her fate. The parents of the beautiful were distraught a lot. Her brothers were very angry. They tried to take her back home. But some relatives intervened and assured them that the beast will change with the passage of time. But he never did. He was not the type of a person who likes changes. On the pertext of religious activities he was getting  opportunity to visit that tantrik, even without anyone knowing it at home.

Very soon people came to know that the beast was spending big amount of his salary on the tantrik. The tantrik used to extort money on the pretext of treating his wife of all evils so that next time she gives birth to a boy. The beautiful was having really bad luck. Every time she conceived, gave birth to a baby girl. The beast was distraught and devastated. The news of fourth girl child being born was unbearable to him. He entered in the hospital room, and kept looking at girl child. Then slowly his eyes got fixed on the face of the beautiful, who was lying almost lifeless on the bed. His face became hard. Suddenly he turned around and left.

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 It was around 1970 when he got the news of his selection. This was a Public sector company and profile was good. Although it was not a high post but he was having the rank of an officer. The salary was enough to raise a family decently. That time, getting a job at officer’s rank was a big deal, sort of achievement itself. That too in a Public sector  organization !

Everyone at the girl’s house was ecstatic about her getting married to a Govt. officer.

The marriage got solemnized. The girl’s parents did everything in there capacity. She was happy and dreaming about a blissful married life. But she was unaware of what was in store for her. Her destiny had some other cruel designs on her. It did n’t took long for the beast to show his true nature. Initially, the beautiful was shocked by his behavior but kept quit about everything. Whatever was happening to her, what ever she was going through, she never complained.

As if she had accepted her defeat ! As if she had resigned to her fate.

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          The beast had almost abandoned her and the kids. She was facing great difficulty in bringing up her kids. He was spending most of his time in the company of Tantrik (the so called guru) and used to come home late night and often beat her. The kids were growing and had no love for their father. But they were always scared of him. All the neighbors could hear and see the beast shouting with anger, almost everyday. There was no retaliation from the beautiful. Albeit, occasional sounds of sob and crying could be heard emanating from the house. When things got out of hands then the relatives intervened and the beast was forced to agree to hand over part of every months salary to the beautiful so that she cud feed her kids.

          The kids were cute. Everyone who saw then first time could not resist kissing and blessing them. The beautiful got them admitted in the school nearby. Somehow she was managing their school expenses, but life was difficult. This money was not enough to meet the household expenses and bear the school expenses of four kids. But she never complained. She never revolted. Many people asked her to leave him but she cud never gather the courage to do that. She was suffering everything….silently.

          Time was flying. When times are against you, everything seems to be falling out of place. It seems as if entire world is conspiring against you.

 The kids were growing fast. The elder daughter was most intelligent and attractive. She was good in studies. But she was the first victim of bad times. Unwillingly she had to share the responsibility of bringing up her siblings. At the tender age of 10 years, she had to bathe them, dress them and send them to school, before leaving for her school. She was overburdened and thus suffered heavily on her studies.

The suppressed, oppressed kids were somehow trying to cop up with the difficulties of life. The beast was never nice to them. He imposed strict rules on dressing and conduct.

They were not allowed to wear short dresses. Not to talk to any boy in the class. The elder one was the prime target, being the most beautiful of them all. But, this was not the end of her miseries. She was blessed with exceptional physical growth. At the age of 12, she looked like a girl of 15-16 years of age .Her body was full and firm. Men looked at her with lusty eyes and she was trying to understand the meaning of those penetrating eyes. Initially she did n’t understood anything but soon she realized everything. The men in her locality were no less. The dumb mother was so devastated in her life that she never realized that her daughter was grown up now and she needed a different kind of care. It was the neighbors who noticed it and apprised her of the situation.

 Time is the biggest teacher, they say!!..... And time taught elder daughter to stand her ground. She tried to get a firm ground under her feet. She tried to put a brave front and took the life head on. She was successful in protecting her and her sibling’s dignity. Slowly she became more vocal and arrogant in family matters. The beast was naturally angry with her for he was not in the habit of meeting any resistance. But she resisted him. She fought him and forced him to stop visiting the guru who was responsible for most of her family’s miseries. He tried to scare her by subjecting her mother with more mental and physical torture but she never budged. The beast was little scared of her by now and stopped abusing her and her mother. But he again started to visit that guru and left the family again on the mercy of God. The mother and daughters were content with their lives. There were few relatives who used to come to see them occasionally and help with what ever they could do despite threats from the beast. But other relatives still kept quite under threat from him.

 Under protection from their “Didi”, the siblings were becoming more conscious and maturing fast. The second eldest daughter, who by now was grown up and doing her Degree, had become most vocal and fiery. She lodged a complained against the guru in near by police station and reported him to be the person who was responsible for all miseries in their life. After all he was the person who was controlling the mind of the beast? She took the help of local news channel and took them to the police station. Seeing news channel people by her side the police swung into action and arrested both persons--The Tantrik and the Beast…. They were lodged into prison cells for few days.

Alas! The law has many loopholes. Culprits know more ways to get out of clutches of law then the law imposing people know to arrest and prosecute them. Finding not much proof against tantrik, they were released by police.

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          The beast is a weak man now. He does not have much power left with in his weak frame of body. He is living miserable life and almost deserted by all relatives. But still he has no regrets. Now he tries to blackmail them emotionally. Although no one fears him now, the wounds inflicted by him will never heal. The time will never come back and the moments the family spent in misfortune, poverty will always remain as scars on their souls.

 The beast is definitely going to suffer for the misdeeds he has done in the past and continue to do even now. If god is there, somewhere, he will definitely listen to the cries of the innocent woman and her daughters. And they are living with this hope only…...

(P.S: Unfortunately this is a true story)