‘If you don’t know me yet,’ I said, ‘I will show you.’ And then I kicked him out

Sumitra is 48 years old. Lives in Pune. Born in Bangladesh. Family migrated to India in 1971 and settled in Nadia district in West Bengal. Name changed on request

I danced barefoot through the mustard fields, swinging my arms in the air, my heart fluttering like a butterfly under the clear blue sky of Bengal. I was going to the next village to a vaid whose medicines, I was told, would cure my mother. I’d left my three sisters behind to look after her. I was 14 and the eldest of them all. It was dusk by the time I returned. My sisters were outside our home, crying. My mother had breathed her last. I dashed inside and fell upon her body, crying, “Ma, look at me! Ma!” She had closed her eyes forever.

Illustration: Uzma Mohsin

Placing my sisters in the care of our Pishima (my father’s sister), I ran from door to door, begging for a few paise to buy the wood to burn my mother’s mortal remains. Ours was a poor village. Even as people saw me draw near, they closed their doors, knowing I was going to ask for charity. Late that night, I sat by my mother, weeping, anxious about how I would cremate her the next day. When the first ray of light illuminated the night, I tied a rope around her body and dragged her to the nearby river. I left her on the river bank; she lay there without a trace of the pain she had suffered for days before she finally passed away. But I stored the pain in my heart, her pain and mine on losing her.


With no one to support us, Pishima sent us out to beg. Then she married me off to a hijra who already had three wives. He beat me every day — finally, I ran away and returned home. Shortly after that, our postman told us there was a lady in Bombay looking for a girl to babysit her 12-year-old niece. A month later, I was in Bombay.

I called this lady Ma, because my Pishima had told me to do so. She was very kind — she taught me to cook and read and write. Soon, I was able to sign my name. She opened a Post Office Account for me and taught me to save. A year later, when I went back to my village on vacation, I bought clothes for my sisters and my Pishima. It was a unique experience. Pishima was very proud of me.

After a few years, I got a job babysitting a little girl in Hong Kong. It was here I met the first man I loved deeply. He was working at the house of a diplomat. We saw each other regularly and our love gave way to passion. He had a wife back home, but he wanted to marry me, he said. In 1999 we returned to India and until the last he promised to marry me. Once in our country, he disappeared. The address he gave me turned out to be false. I was devastated; I cut myself off from everyone.

In the meantime, I had not lost touch with Ma. At her suggestion, I bought a small flat in Pune with the money I had saved over the years in Hong Kong. I was secure at last, with a roof over my head. But I never forgot the night I had no money to buy wood for my mother’s last rites. It is human to want to love and be loved in return. Some time after that, a bright young boy, struggling to become a fashion designer, reached my heart. I was reluctant and afraid. But he persisted. He took me to meet his mother and made me part of his home. I lost myself in his arms and all the betrayal and unrequited love I had suffered melted in a torrent of surrender to this man. For two years, Joy and I were lost in a paradise of love and passion. Then, at the end of it, there I was, alone, shocked, stunned at what destiny was doling out to me once again. Did I deserve it? My mind said no. The facts before me were a much worse betrayal than the first. Claiming he wished to go to London to train in fashion designing, he had made me mortgage my house for Rs 1,50,000. He took the entire amount from me. When I showed the papers to Ma and her niece, they were aghast. I had been duped into selling my home. I began receiving threat calls to vacate my house or return the money. I had lost all my savings to my new love. I had even sold my jewellery for his studies. I was bankrupt.

Ma and her niece suggested I lodge an FIR. Joy threatened to kill himself if I did that. I felt helpless. Time was not on my side. The threat calls were intensifying by the day. Then one morning, he came by and began to fight with me.

“You have no faith in me. I will return the money, I told you.” “But how?” I asked. “Three months have passed and you have not left the country!” He became furious and in his anger he raised his hand to strike me. “Who the hell are you to question me?”

I grabbed his hand mid-air and a voice I had never heard before came out of my throat. “I AM,” I said, “I am Sumitra. If you do not know me yet, I will show you now.” I kicked him out of my flat. I stepped out into the sun and went to the nearest police station and lodged an FIR against him and the buyer of my flat.

(As told to Julia Dutta)