It was a shallow ditch where she lay violated, ravaged, bloody, naked and dead,
Her face pummeled, her ribs pulverized, her breasts lacerated and her sanctum impaled;
Her blood curdling screams had only been heard by the birds, the bees, the shrubs and the trees,
The ghastly sight haunted them, they suffered, shivered and shriveled moaning how the four men encircling her had missed her pleas;
The magnanimous winter sun showered its nourishing warmth, cast its soft glow on her strong, serene face and made it radiant as gold,
She aspired to join the armed forces, played field hockey, rode her Dad’s Rajdoot motorcycle, her choices had always been bold;
She pulled out her daddy’s archaic ex-ride, smart in her impeccably creased Shalwar-Kurta and her Chunni in a neat knot on her side she hopped on astride,
having pipped her brother to the post in the race to wrest this coveted family heirloom she was beaming from ear to ear with unbounded joy and pure pride;
She rode straight to the Jhopadpatti(Slum) with the usual sense of urgency as if lives rested in the balance on the fulcrum of her arrival,
the 18 little kids she taught daily before she headed to her college mobbed her dotingly as if they had spotted an angel bearing the elixir of their survival;
Her jokes made them hysterical, she made them see the world through a lens that was aspherical (free of poverty’s distortions) and the happiness she brought them for that one precious hour reverberated in their laughter which was absolutely lyrical,
It was as if she had given their lives a new meaning, given these fledgling feathers a preening, they held on to her every last word as if they were missionaries and her words were Biblical;
She had set aside a fraction of her scholarship and squared away money from her hockey winnings over the last few months determined to bring them this grand surprise,
As the class drew to a close, a man riding a red and yellow scooter parked and alighted trying to be as incognito as he possibly could !, opened a hot box with two golden arches and started handing out boxes which had – you guessed it right – burgers and fries;
She bid adieu to the faces drenched in ketchup, mayonnaise and mirth and zoomed off to her morning class,
She put a bear hug around her BFF Anita, who was in turn ecstatic to see her guardian angel; the one who had once pulled her out of a suicidal funk when her own family had let go of her in that moment of darkness like an eel gives the fisherman’s hand a pass;
Anita rode pillion on their way back from college basking in the glorious counterbalance of the crispness of the winter afternoon and the fading warmth of the setting sun that washed over her senses,
Her tryst with mother nature’s affection was rudely interrupted by a human paw that had savagely grabbed her breast and yanked her almost off the motorcycle, an act which had the unmistakable handprint of one of Lucifer’s trademark offenses;
They came to a swerving, screeching halt, the offender on the other motorbike unfazed by the disgusting and dangerous nature of his prior action tried again to reach out to grab his prey,
Our athletic Braveheart though in one lightning maneuver jumped off the motorbike, pulled out the hockey stick from the side basket and with one powerful swing banished that lecherous paw from the fray;
The two devils picked themselves up in the middle of a bustling city intersection, licked their wounds and menacingly barked vows of revenge before scampering away with their tails tucked between their legs tight,
Our heroine had once again stood up for what was right, not shied away from a righteous fight, defied masculine entitlement’s might and by Jove was it a majestic sight!;
A week had passed since, she stepped off the astro- turf of the hockey stadium to assume her rightful place atop the topmost echelon of the Inter University championship podium,
That evening the cowards came hunting for the lioness in a pack of four, dragged her into the Jeep and shut the door, drove off to a secluded part of town and then commenced an act of unimaginable odium;
The ditch is now empty and the mutilated body has now turned to ash, the birds, the bees, the shrubs and the trees still shudder anytime a Jeep stops nearby,
But quickly recover, relax and rejoice as they see the road now filled with thousands of daredevils who have sprung in her place with hockey sticks on Rajdoots, Yamahas, and Bullets fly by!