Sreeja awoke with a start. Her heart was thumping and she could feel beads of perspiration forming on her forehead. Rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand she reached for the glass of water on her bedside table, switching on the reading lamp along the way.
3:15 am, the wall clock obstinately proclaimed. She could have slept for three more hours, but from experience she knew that this was not to be. She would remain awake staring at the ceiling, cringing intermittently as she battled the demons that had been haunting her for over six weeks now.
She wondered if life would ever be the same again.
The day was still vivid in her mind. She was elated at having successfully completed her first market research study in the capacity of a project leader. The drive from Chandigarh to Gurgaon would take about five hours and they had planned an early start so as to beat the traffic. Amit was occupying the passenger seat up front, struggling to find a few tolerable numbers from the collection of songs in the pen-drive the taxi driver had proudly handed over to him. Radhika and Shubro were on the back seat alongside her. While Shubro was absorbed in the landscape they were zipping past, Radhika was sound asleep, her head lightly resting on Sreeja’s shoulder.
They were an enthusiastic bunch, her team, and Sreeja couldn’t help but smile at the thought that despite being only a couple of years their senior, she had been entrusted with the responsibility to lead them. They had completed a three-day field study in Chandigarh for one of their FMCG clients and were now returning with the raw research data they had tirelessly collected. While the others, their task accomplished, could rest in peace, Sreeja was lost in thoughts about the manner she would approach the analysis and the eventual presentation to the client team.
Just then a raucous ringtone broke her reverie. She saw the driver use one hand to shuffle through his pockets and fish out his mobile phone. She couldn’t make much of the animated conversation that followed, but as soon as he disconnected the call he announced, “There is trouble up ahead. Some agitators have blocked the highway it seems.” Since the message was addressed to no one in particular, Amit was the first to respond. “Where? And how bad is it?”
“I am not sure. I just got a call from my employer asking me to exercise caution.” They were all eager to get back home and amidst the eagerness the warning lost its steam. “We shall cross the hurdle when we come to it,” came the unanimous verdict.
Much later, as Sreeja and Radhika remained huddled – howling, screaming and begging – stripped bare, alongside six other women, surrounded by dozens of fierce and agitated hooligans, this decision would be rued like none they had ever made. “I am one of you – Sreeja Kadian. My father is a poor clerk working with a private firm in Sirsa. He took loans – some of which I have only begun to repay now – he suppressed his own needs and desires to give me the career I have today,” she wanted to reason, but amidst the groping hands and ravenous faces words remained elusive.
…but amidst the groping hands and ravenous faces words remained elusive.
The mob had turned wild and their original demand for inclusion among the reserved category of castes seemed to have become subservient to more carnal and animalistic needs. Sreeja and Radhika were no more than meek preys to them.
Just when she was on the verge of giving up all hope, a familiar face materialized before her. She saw the raw aggression in his eyes dissolve into recognition and further change to sympathy. It was this man who became their saviour, reasoning and arguing with his comrades to let them go. The next memory Sreeja had was of sitting in an auto rickshaw, Radhika by her side, clad in unfamiliar garments, racing towards a jungle of concrete.
It was only two days later, once she’d been discharged from the hospital, that she learnt about the fate of her other colleagues. Amit was still in the hospital, nursing his three fractured bones and several concussions. Shubro had escaped with merely a few cuts and bruises. She never saw Radhika again. She was informed that Radhika’s parents had visited the office to submit her resignation letter.
It took Sreeja a week to muster enough courage to return to work. Her colleagues were sympathetic and no one broached the incident in her presence. It was around lunch time in the office pantry that she came to face the inevitable. “Madam, Chapati?” the pantry boy had asked. And when she looked up to meet his gaze, she found a familiar pair of eyes staring back at her.
First published in: Club Class magazine, Issue – April’16