Short Story: Digging by Rituparna Mitra

Rituparna Mitra’s story is moving and enthralling in equal parts as she captures the conundrum of a woman so accurately.

Unbeknownst to her, he had been digging. And had now reached where no man was allowed. All that she had stitched with diligence, deftness, and secrecy to the innermost chambers of her heart lay out in the open- naked and vulnerable. She had failed all her secrets. All the letters and notes lay crumpled at her feet. Everything she had been preserving for years and protecting from the “gaze” scholars discussed in papers and women avoided on the streets.

Except that she had been violated at home. Violated yet another time. At a different kind of home. Unlike the one, she was born into. A home she had vowed only to leave after her death. Unlike the one where preparations started for her departure probably from the day of her birth.  That was temporary. This permanent.

But could she really blame anyone!? It was his home after all. He had built it and furnished it with his hard-earned money. And by that virtue, everything in it rightfully belonged to him. He was the master of the home.  He could move things, throw away the unneeded ones and even demolish the whole of it. No questioning the master, after all. Only pleasing him in any way he deemed fit. 

Of course, she could scream profanities and hurl abuses at him for destroying memories she had been holding onto for as long as she had been a woman. Memories she had created much before he entered her life. Memories of another life she once lived. Memories of another Akansha she once was.