A Woven Witness
Aanshika
Mohapatra
I am an expert at the
art of hide-and-seek, floating through courtyards gushing with sunlight like a
stray breeze caught in silk. For generations, and those before them, I have
been the favourite guest at every wedding and celebration. Sometimes I smell of
starch, of sun-bleached air, of dried grass and damp soil. Sometimes I carry
the faint fragrance of jasmine, the richness of rose, and the sharp scent of
lemons. Sometimes — more often than the others — I smell of family pride,
reputation, and, as much as I hate it, of a voice growing silent.
To the village
elders, I am merely a lovely, light-hearted luxury; a shimmering, gold-threaded
companion meant to frame a girl’s smile and cascade softly over her shoulders —
a beautiful, unbothered curtain.
But sometimes, close
to her skin.
My threads absorb a
completely different reality, and suddenly I am left holding a heavy stillness.
Pressed against her
skin, I become the silent keeper of secrets the customary tribunals refuse to
hear. I am there when the laughter fades and the frantic, trapped rhythm of her
pulse begins, resting upon her brow as she is quietly bartered into a future
she did not choose. When the elders decree that the soil she has spent her
entire life tilling belongs only to her elder brother, who never bothered to
step onto that “dirty space,” I feel the sharp, invisible tremor of her
economic exile. I catch the damp, muffled static of her voice when she tries to
protest. I absorb the cold, unattended tears of a freedom slipping away just
behind her eyes.
They tell her I
protect her value, yet they use me to ensure she remains invisible. I am the
fabric that mutes her protests, the screen that hides her bruises, the rope
that pulls her back, and the boundary that limits her freedom.
I am her bridal veil.
I am her traditional shroud, and as I settle over yet another generation, my threads grow heavy, drowning out her tomorrow in a sea of beautiful, suffocating silence.
Pic source: Gemini
