Kalki

She was dreaming again. Kalki was half asleep and she knew that it was only a dream; that she wasn’t really a bird flying without a care in the world with nobody stopping her or telling her where to go. She didn’t want to wake up from the dream. Only when the sheets were rudely pulled off by Amma, she forced herself out of bed. She folded the sheets neatly, rolled the mattress and placed them in the corner of the room. She cast an envious look at her brother- the master of his own destiny. He would continue to sleep until lunch time and no one would object to it. 

Kalki walked to the cowshed. Babuji liked drinking fresh milk every morning before setting off to the fields. She milked the cows in silence as scenes from the past played before her eyes. She remembered the day Babuji walked up to her when she was playing with Gudiya. He had one of his grave and cold expressions on his face. He told her that she’d have to cut down on playing in the fields and help Amma with house work. She had to learn everything in a day… sweeping the floor, milking the cows, cleaning the shed, making cakes out of cow-dung, making rotis, packing Babuji’s lunch… the list was endless. When she wouldn’t obey, she’d be forced into submission with a chadi or by twisting her tender ear to a full circle. Each passing day brought a new bar to her cage. Soon she learned that she wasn’t allowed to step out of the house after six; there was a boundary in the field she wasn’t allowed to cross. She had made two grave mistakes – she was born in a poor family and she was born a girl.

Being the youngest in the family, she was always at the receiving end of everyone’s ill-temper. If the harvest wasn’t good enough, Babuji would find the rotis she made hard and inedible, if Bhaiyya had a bad day at school, he’d kick her and tell her she was blocking his way, if Amma had an argument with Babuji, she’d tie her choti real tight and smack her head if she squealed in protest. Nobody knew or cared… but a child’s heart was wilting! Her vision blurred and cleared as tear drops that escaped her eyelids brought her back to the present. That afternoon she walked up to Amma and asked her if she loved her. “Of course I do, Kallo”, Amma said without looking in her direction. Kalki wasn’t convinced. Amma’s eyes didn’t light up when she saw her, the way they did when she saw Bhaiyya. She knew Amma was lying. Love and neglect cannot co-exist. Even a child knows that. 

That evening Kalki found Bhaiyya’s kite, lying unattended near the door. She looked around and found that nobody was watching. She knew that this could get her into trouble, but she didn’t fight back the urge to pick it up and run as fast as her tiny feet could take her, towards the open fields. She turned around and watched as the colorful kite took flight. She was breathing heavily now. She was stealing a moment of happiness, something she had every right over, but it felt so wrong that it gave her a unique thrill. She ran faster… until the grass was just a blur of green, the sky was blue with a dash of color held by a string… with just the sound of her little feet and tense breathing in the background. And then she stopped. She watched the wind lead the kite as her breathing got back to normal. For that moment, she wanted to be the kite. She watched it perform pirouettes mid-air, when she realized that its motion was bound by the string… that in her hands, the kite was but a puppet. By being constantly denied freedom, she knew what freedom was all about. She heard faint cries from the distance. Someone was calling out her name angrily. It was Bhaiyya… he was running like a madman in her direction. She ran in the opposite direction, the string wrapped tightly around her little fingers. He was closing in on her, but she didn’t stop. She had now reached the far end of the field, the point beyond which she wasn’t allowed to go. Bhaiyya was just a few steps away. Her vision alternated between him and the boundary. And then in a moment of madness, she let go of the string. The kite tossed about violently in the sky… unafraid, unrestrained, uncontrolled. She was stealing a moment from her life. For that moment, she was the kite