Naina

Legs wide apart, make up smeared, Kajal, which was brought from the depart­men­tal store after enough hag­gle to annoy all the elite con­sumers of the store, was drool­ing from the left cor­ner of her right eye to meet the emerg­ing depth of her spread nose. Stool on which she was rest­ing her bot­tom had gone black of the dust. Her eyes were ques­tion­ing, one could eas­i­ly deci­pher the cod­ed remorse gath­er­ing through and between years. Her care­less bun was the indi­ca­tor of her repug­nance.

Naina lived in a small pitiable cot­tage sit­u­at­ed in ille­git­i­mate­ly con­struct­ed colony on the bank of the city sew­er behind the pun­gent smelling meat mar­ket of Lahore. Though she was all glam­oured-up the night before but today she was, infact, look­ing down on her­self with non- reme­di­al regrets. Recall­ing all the sleep­less nights she had spend fondling the morals of the soci­ety, just to make her ends meet. It’s been so long in busi­ness that she had even lost the count.

Naina hailed from a small vil­lage sit­u­at­ed a forty kilo­me­ters from Faisal­abad. She was born to a cler­gy, one odd sheep of his herd of sev­en. Her moth­er had died of tuber­cu­lo­sis when she was bare­ly twelve, since the day her elder sis­ter had tak­en over the house­hold. Out of all six of her sib­lings, her elder sis­ter, Sak­i­na, was her only shel­ter after her moth­er. Soon when Sak­i­na got mar­ried there was no way for Naina to take refuge from the bru­tal wraths of her father. She was hard­ly fif­teen when she fled from Shahkot with a friend to Lahore and took refuge here at Neel­i’s res­i­dence and became her daugh­ter. Neeli was man­ag­ing her five dis­ci­ples, includ­ing Naina. All six would sleep late till after­noon, beg in the evening and become pros­ti­tutes by night.

Naina nev­er want­ed to sell her­self just for the sake of few rupees but it was to ensure her meals and bare neces­si­ties. All this humil­i­a­tion, this degra­da­tion and insult, she nev­er wished for it. Just last night when police raid­ed the par­ty, she had to spend most of her time behind bars along all. Stars, curs­es and phys­i­cal abuse, oh God, she had to go through all that. She was dis­gust­ed.

“Nai­ni Baji! Your phone’s been ring­ing, for God sake pick it up and let us sleep” shout­ed Maxi from inside.
” O’ sir! You? What was left to say last night that you had to call in the morn­ing for” Naina sobbed.

“My love, you know what that was for? Now let that go and let the door be open I am com­ing and will slip in for five min­utes” area police super­in­ten­dent replied in a horny tone and hung up.

Naina just sat there, defeat­ed. Took out tea in the cup and start­ed sip­ping. Gaz­ing at the open door, wait­ing.….