The priest, potbellied and bald, was at least not one of those who preached by day and sinned by night. He didn’t sneak into the brothel once the evening puja was done, from the tiny doorway in the side of Sonagachi, and stand impatiently while one of the women relieved him of inconvenient desires. Free of course, the men of God paid in blessing and amulets, to desperately sad, abandoned residents who craved even the faintest glimmer of hope or forgiveness. No, this priest had come for the bucket full of dirt for Durga’s statue, the special soil from the threshold of Sin, where people left their virtue to step into the rooms of hidden damnation.
Kanchan didn’t bother with such commerce. She knew she would not be eligible for any chance of heaven. She was of those whose sin was inbred. One of those girls, you know, one whose blood ran hot ever since she was three. She would run around and get dirty with the boys, was never interested in dressing up in pretty silk lehngas to preen beside her mother, tenderly cradling tiny bangles and long braided hair shiny with oil and flowers. Her bangles always broke and her hair, unruly curly riotous around her head were as wild as she was. She would jump around in the rain, splashing in the puddles and ditches, singing (yelling) loudly up to the heavens in joy.
She would laugh too loudly, talk constantly and compete with her cousins in all the boys games. And beat them!!!! As other girls became serious about learning the arts of music and beauty, aware of their changing bodies and approaching adulthood, she would escape the afternoons of chit chat and swim!!!! The aunts and grandmothers would exchange significant looks and whispered comments and her mother grew frantic trying to make her daughter behave the way the other girls did.
And so no one was surprised when she was surrounded one evening and met the fate such a wanton was obviously destined to meet. No one tried to comfort her or even spoke to her as she stood in the courtyard, her clothes torn, bruises and bite marks scattered liberally over her dusty skin, blood welling from the mark the knife had left at her throat. She had not begged for forgiveness, instead defiant pride stiffening her frame, her chin raised, her eyes hard, she had left. She had been told a million times, warned and scolded, but what could you do with a girl who was born passionate?
Kanchan never learned moderation, she still laughed and talked too loudly. She still had no respect for the respectable people who came as customers, didn’t know her place. She never tried to escape or prayed for rescue. She knew she belonged there, the sin that sullied people of virtue, of restraint and piety. The only thing that changed was that she stopped dancing in the rain.
©alka
