My Sister's Fall

All hell broke loose when Bhanuben found that her daughter, Apexa, had fallen in love and later failed. What Apexa said was, "His name was Bharat. We went to a romantic movie. There he tried to slip his hand where he should not."

Mom probed more, "What did more he do?" She was frantically eager to know about her daughter's journey to hell.

The tears rolled down off Apexa's eyes. She replied nothing except, "I committed a terrible mistake by keeping faith in a devil, who didn't eat but sustained his life through sucking girls' like herself blood."

She had met him in engineering college. Her parents lived in a town and sent her to the city with the exclusive hope of making their daughter engineer. But three year later, Apexa didn't return with a degree but with a certificate of madness.

Her behaviour was strange and her parent's taunts added to her pain. Her mother, Bhanuben used to boast all her neighbours, "My daughter is of the utmost morality, unlike others' daughters who are infamous in the whole locality for their love affairs."

Now how can Bhanuben show her face???? Possibly the neighbours may one day know about her daughter ... she couldn't think more. Her weight started to decrease. Gossiping neighbours left no stone unturned for the exact reason behind Bhanuben's sudden weight loss and the equally sudden return of her daughter. But she ignored the question and if she replied it hadn't contained a germ of truth.

The search for a psychiatrist took place. After the first session, Apexa and her father, Jetubhai, returned with myriad of pills in different colours. Jetubhai read the wrapper of tablets. One word he could only understand was "vitamin". Did his daughter have any malnutrition problem?

"No," an experienced patient of the doctor said, "There's a hidden deal between pharmacy companies and doctors. So the doctor prescribed unnecessary medications in addition to the medicine required to cure the illness."

Apexa's mental health didn't seem to be improving, but she was gaining weight. It was common among all the doctor's patients. None knew the exact reason. When Jetubhai told doctor about no improvement in her health, the doctor advised that Apexa take "sitting". It sounded strange to Jetubhai. To sit means to sit down or to take a seat, but in this kind of sitting, Apexa was injected with colourful fluids. She then drifted into an unconscious state of mind. An hour or two later, she regained her consciousness and the doctor allowed her be taken home. Many other sittings followed, but to no avail. Her mental condition did not improve.

The parents didn't want Apexa to discontinue engineering study. They pressured her to appear for the upcoming third year's exam. She bowed down to their orders. However instead of writing, she busied herself tearing at her dry lips and the blood started flowing onto the question paper and answer sheet. When the supervisors noticed, they advised her to take a rest. But Jetubhai was obdurate. She did finish the exam and the result was FAIL.

Bhanuben was in bad condition. She believed her daughter was no longer a virgin. In fury of anger she asked, "Have you slept with him?"

"See, mom doubts on me," Apexa said to herself.

"But...but I found hair remover cream, face wash, perfume," Bhanuben said shivering with anger. "All these items are used by married women."

"It's not true; in our hostel my room partners use them." Apexa knew, she was making vain attempts.

Bhanuben didn't find it convincing. She recalled an incident which was the epitome of how carefully protecting from all outer evils she had reared Apexa.

That day Jetubhai was pursued to allow Apexa to go see a super hit Bollywood film. Apexa did all to convince father, as she wasn't allowed to go outside alone or with her shameless friends with which the society was overflowing.

When Jetubhai accepted her proposal after much clamour and crying, she was jumping with joy. She wanted to look best on this GREAT OCCASION. She asked eagerly to her mom, "Where's the lipstick which our late aunty left behind before going to heaven?"

After much search, Bhanuben found it. Apexa applied it and then proudly looked in the mirror. She compared herself with her favourite Bollywood heroine (whose dance steps she loved to copy in front of television, but only when the parents weren't at home. They called it IMMORAL.) The time for leaving for the film came. Jetubhai saw his daughter's lips and screamed in anger, "Remove it right now; you aren't a whore, are you???"

Mother wasn't spared either, "where's the lipstick??" She was shivering in fear as she was equally responsible for the sin of applying lipstick.

Bhanuben handed that debased object to her husband and he lost no time in throwing it violently over the corrugated roof of neighbour's house to a distance from where it couldn't be brought back. On the other side, Apexa was removing lipstick and the joy of going to watch the movie was gone. When she overheard about dad's throwing act, and she felt as if her precious possession was gone!

Because of this lipstick incident, father-daughter reached the theatre ten minutes late. Apexa remembered clearly what her school friend said to her,

"That heroine looked so graceful when she appeared for the first time in the film." Sigh!!! That very moment was passed.

The wetness on Bhanuben's cheeks made her returned to the present. To prove her point more accurately to her self that she nor her husband weren't at fault, but Apexa, Bhanuben recaptured another memory.

Apexa was studying in tenth grade. Her exam form needed to be pasted a passport size photo. Jetubhai didn't find it advisable to let his daughter go to photographer with her class mates. It was known that one of the photographers eloped with a girl who was a frequent visitor to the studio to get her photos. So Jetubhai escorted Apexa to the studio. The photographer took a week to prepare the photo.

A week later, her classmate asked Apexa to accompany her to the photographer, "Hey, I'm going to the photographer today. Have you got yours?"

"No, my dad will do this."

"Why don't we both go together??"

"But my dad....he won't like it if I go outside alone."

"Alone? I'm with you. After all he'll be happy if he thinks his daughter does her work by herself." Apexa was convinced and went to studio after school was over.

She returned home happily and showed her mom the photo, "Mom, Look, how beautiful I'm looking in the photo." It was a passport size black and white photo. Her eyes were bright; her two plaits and two little rings in her ears...all added to her loveliness.

But Bhanuben screamed loudly enough to deafen the whole neighbourhood, "You went there alone???? Whore... you went there alone! Tell me what your father has advised you." Apexa was slapped on tender cheeks.

"I....I wasn't alone...she....my classmate was with me." It was true that Apexa was rather weak at multitasking, crying and speaking simultaneously.

It was a lame excuse, according to Bhanuben. What could her little classmate do if some ruffians seduced her daughter or abducted her on the way to studio? Bhanuben slapped again but with more force. Apexa was horrified losing the hold over photo.

As dad returned from work, mother told about their daughter's adventures, by adding some more spices to excite him. Without wasting a moment Jetubhai searched for something hittable. His blood red eyes scanned the landscape. A long iron rod bumped into his sight. He wielded it and hit on her legs repetitively. Apexa was screaming in pain. After several blows his anger subsided.

Bhanuben thought, 'My daughter's fake lover must have used her as whore and taken all money from the customers.

Her imaginations were endless. (She was damn doubtful; she wouldn't allow Apexa to stand by window watching passers-by. In pretence of passing time by observing people, Apexa may exchange a naughty wink and then it might cause a love story!)

After many futile tries to continue engineering, Apexa's parents decided get her admission to a PTC (primary teacher certificate) course. They believed it as the safest job for womanhood, far better than engineering in which their daughter had to deal with plenty of people and in guise of promotion she might be convinced to sleep with bosses. On the contrary after completing the course, she would apply for a job in some government school. There were no night duties nor an overload of work. After getting a job, she would be married. However it didn't turn out as they planned.

Apexa finished the PTC program, and she did get job in a village government primary school. One month later her colleagues noticed that she couldn't handle the class of 50 students. When the students fought, Apexa couldn't stop them; when they screamed in between the lessons, she would bear it without a word, instead silencing students by cudgelling them.

Her health was deteriorating. The psychiatrist was changed. He prescribed new tablets but she didn't take them due to the side effect fears. Yeah, she flaunted her huge history of side effects to everyone.

"One day after taking the new tablets, you know, I fainted. Another time, I was unable to urinate; my hands weren't under my control making me unable to write ..." The list was endless. So now whenever she took a new medicine, she couldn't stop thinking about side effects, and it made Apexa unable to sleep. Merely an indirect reference to changing medication angered her and she chased the adviser to hit him.

Now the roles were changed. She hit, cursed and shouted at her father. Jetubhai metamorphosed into a cowardly cat from cruel lion. The suffering of his daughter changed him completely.

So she didn't take prescribed medication and one day she couldn't sleep all the night. Sleep was damn at distance from her. She decided to resign from the job, but Bhanuben wouldn't let her. So Apexa chose the middle way. She ceased to attend the school. The parents tried everything until one day they received a dismissal letter in post of their daughter, fired due to long absence.

The parents were worried how Apexa could spend the rest of her life without any monetary support. They'd die one day and relatives weren't good enough to take care of her mentally abnormal daughter. She must get married. But her mental health?? Who did want insane wife??? They dropped the idea and life passed as usual.

Five years later, another advertisement appeared for a school teacher in the newspaper. Apexa was unwilling but the parents won. They thought some greedy families may show interest in her salary and would be willing to tie the knot with their daughter.

With great surprise, she was selected. She also obtained a fitness certificate which she had to submit to prove she was fit for the job. From not a single angle did she look fit; even a rickshaw driver commented to Jetubhai that "she seemed ill". Oh! But that's the India, the unfit fellows procure fitness certificates and the rape accused, character certificates!!!

So now she went to another village, another school. Apexa passed month and the complaints about her started pouring in her ears. The principal scolded her frequently and it was embarrassing for her as it happened in front of the staff.

Every day she used to cry before going to school. The curious villagers found it odd as they hadn't seen a teacher instead of student crying to not to go to school. But she was helpless against parent's force. She had to. The other day she was adamant not to continue her job but her parents proposed that she "submit resignation and continue until it's accepted." She accepted the proposal.

On the other hand, Jetubhai had met the principal secretly and urged him not to send the resignation to higher authority. He described her mental condition and with wretched voice he added, "The string of my daughter's kite is in your hand. I hope you won't let it be cut."

The principal understood the situation and found no problem in performing this drama. However Apexa kept asking the principal if the resignation was accepted. He kept replying, "My duty is only to send it to higher authority. I don't know how many days it takes to pass it."

Later the principal invented a new idea to handle the naughty students of Apexa's class. She was provided support in the form of blind music teacher. He did nothing except to play a musical instrument in the morning prayer of the school or to sit idly in the principal's chamber.

In between, the search for a groom began with a blast. Bhanuben had often dreamed about the number of qualities she wished to have in her future son-in-law. But now she was overheard telling her relative that a widower or a divorced man wouldn't be a bad choice. The parents told all and sundry relatives to keep a watchful eye out for an unmarried boy of their caste. Out of many, one came to see the girl but to no avail. Others knew that the girl was mad so they stopped replying her parents call.

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I don't know what's in store for the future of Apexa, my sister, (yeah nothing you read in above is fictional). She is still working unwillingly and her strong resolution is, "I quit the job after summer vacation." The search for a groom is still on, but with less hope.

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I'm particularly thankful to ireadit for editing it.