The Dowry Bride Read online

  Without money and support, Amma would have her back in a minute. Amma had made up her mind that her precious son was to become a widower. That way he’d be guaranteed another bride immediately, without the stigma of divorce. And that meant Amma would hunt Megha down and kill her with her own two hands to get what she wanted.

  That left Megha with no place to go and no one to turn to. She was alone in the world—completely alone. She had no home and no family to speak of anymore. All at once, desolation struck her. Blind to the dust and debris around her, she sank to the footpath for the second time and buried her face in her hands. What was she going to do?

  Hard, painful sobs racked her body as she surrendered to the hopelessness that engulfed her.

  Her father would never be able to come up with the dowry. So why had he promised the Ramnaths a dowry he couldn’t afford? How could her parents do this to her? She would have been better off remaining a spinster. Was marriage so important in a woman’s life that cruelty and even death wouldn’t be considered too great a sacrifice? Why did people like her parents insist on having children they could ill afford in the first place? Just so they could give them away in marriage to murderers? Didn’t a precious human life mean anything anymore?

  In that instant, she hated her parents with a passion she never knew she was capable of. In fact, she loathed them even more than she loathed Suresh and her in-laws. She could never forgive her father for this. He was a monster for selling her to the lowest bidder.

  But she despised herself more than anyone. Why hadn’t she had the guts to stand up to her father and refuse to marry that ass named Suresh? Why hadn’t she lashed out at Amma and her meanness? After hearing about the murder plans why hadn’t she marched over to the neighbors’ house and summoned the police? Because she was afraid.

  Once the cathartic weeping fit was over, Megha wiped her eyes and began to think hard and take stock of her situation. Most important, she was still alive. And her chief priority was to stay alive. She had to get out of the immediate vicinity first—find a relatively safe place to hide. Ignoring the small puddle of blood her injured foot had left behind and the throbbing pain, she looked around, trying to figure out which direction to take. And she froze.

  A man sitting huddled under a sheet was watching her from several feet away. Where had he come from? Had he been there all along, observing her while she had taken cover behind the box and then cried like a baby? Why had she not noticed him all this time?

  When she glanced at him again, he rose to his feet, dropped his sheet and stretched to his full height. He was looking directly at her. Something about the tense stillness of his body told her he was going to make a move on her any second. He had the look of a predator, crouching, silently poised to pounce on its prey. He started to walk toward her. His white teeth flashed at her in the muted light—a sinister smirk that terrified her to the very marrow of her bones.

  Dear God, he probably thought she was a prostitute, ripe for the taking! She had never been out on the streets alone at this time of night. She had no idea what kinds of peril stalked the town after midnight. Purely on instinct she shot to her feet. Sprinting across the street, she lost herself in the shadows of a dark alley. The fog seemed thicker there, making it hard to see anything, but she ran on.

  She heard the man’s footsteps behind her. He was now running to catch up with her. Since he had probably not expected her to take off so abruptly, he might have been taken by surprise, and that fact alone had allowed her a few precious moments to get a head start. But she was still in serious danger. His feet were pounding the alley’s surface.

  Her breathing began to deteriorate into desperate huffing. Nothing could have been more terrible a few minutes ago, she’d thought. She was wrong. Things had just gone from bad to worse, to much, much worse! Just as she was running to save her life from a fiery death, a derelict man had discovered her—was chasing her. I can’t allow him to get me! He will not rape me…I won’t let him, she vowed in silence, staying in motion with difficulty. But how long could she elude him?

  Ahead she noticed a large wall looming to her right. A stone wall encompassing someone’s property, she guessed. Sliding to a stop for one breathless moment, she quickly studied the wall. Surrounded by darkness, it was impossible to tell whether there was a gate in it. There was only one thing she could do: climb over the damned wall and take her chances with a vicious guard dog. If she kept running she’d soon be out of strength and eventually collapse. Her hunter would catch up with her. He had looked big and muscular—a man accustomed to the hard, violent life on the streets.

  She eyed the wall again. Could she scale it? The man was gaining ground behind her. She could feel his presence closing in. It was now or never. Clenching her teeth hard with the effort, she gripped the top edge of the wall, pulled herself up with one strong thrust and vaulted over it.

  With a dull thud she fell into a garden of some kind, wincing as her bottom hit the hard ground and her arms and legs got scratched some more by low-lying plants. Swallowing against the sharp sting, she gave herself a moment to recover then tried to rise to her feet. She couldn’t—her legs were paralyzed rubber. Could she have broken a bone somewhere?

  Setting all thoughts of injury aside for a second, she cocked her ears to listen for sounds. The hastening steps were unmistakable. He was coming! She’d made it over the edge not a moment too soon. Her pursuer had reached the spot where she’d been standing mere seconds ago, and come to a stop. She could hear his labored breathing clearly on the other side. Even the combined stench of his stale-liquor breath and body odor was wafting up and over the barrier.

  Paralysis worked to her advantage, however, since she seemed to have frozen on the spot, although she hoped her own hard wheezing wasn’t too loud. Even the beat of her heart sounded like drumbeats. With any luck, the miserable bastard was too intoxicated to be able to hear well.

  For what seemed like endless minutes, Megha heard the man inhale deeply. Did he know she was on the other side? Is that why he stood there, waiting for her to reappear?

  She glanced about in panic, looking for an alternate escape route in case the man decided to scale the wall and come after her. A large house stood in the background, shrouded in dark silence. If there was a way around the house, she couldn’t see it. Thank God there was no sign of guard dogs. Maybe there was a garden tool or a piece of wood or something she could use to defend herself. But it was too damned dark to see anything. The fog was proving to be one hell of a nuisance.

  “Kidhar gayi salee?” she heard the drunkard murmur in Hindi. Where did the whore go?

  So he didn’t know where she was! Megha exhaled a deep but quiet sigh. Thank you, God! The bum hadn’t seen her leap over the wall after all. Good thing she was wearing a dark sari. And the fog, which she had considered a curse a second ago, was proving to be a blessing in some ways.

  She seemed safe for the time being. But she didn’t slump in relief or budge from her spot despite her temporary sense of reprieve. The man was still very much there. She could hear the profanities he kept grinding out and his cough, a deep, guttural, phlegm-packed sound typical of people who smoked beedis: tobacco leaves hand-rolled into tubes that resembled thin cigarettes. A beedi was the poor man’s cigarette.

  After a minute, Megha’s brain thawed a little and her numb limbs seemed to come semi-alive. She flexed her hands, wondering if she would be able to climb back over the wall. What if that wretched beast decided to camp out right there for the night?

  Another round of panic shot through her when something soft skittered past her feet. Snake? She was terrified of reptiles. Or was it a rat? She hated rats, too. Could it be the blood oozing from her injured foot that was attracting some kind of blood-sucking creatures? She sat still, hoping to play dead. Maybe they’d sniff and go away.

  God, what had she plunged into—from the proverbial frying pan into the fire? Only, in her case, it was more like the fire to the frying pan. And how much
longer could she hide out in some stranger’s garden? Daylight was only a few hours away.

  Time was running out.

  She listened, praying the vagrant would give up on her and leave, praying the night creature wouldn’t return with some of its friends to feast on her wounded foot, praying she hadn’t broken any bones and had the strength left to scale the wall once again, praying she could find a place to hide.

  Finally, after what seemed like ages, the man started to stir. She waited till his footsteps began to fade away. He kept murmuring expletives under his breath and coughing, which in a way was to her advantage. It told her he was on his way back to the filthy hole he had emerged from. Only then did she crumple in relief for a few moments to think and plan her next move.

  Now that the immediate danger had passed, it was hard to concentrate on rational matters. Exhaustion and pain were warring for attention in her body. Her eyelids began to droop from weariness. The thought of running aimlessly through the streets with an injured foot was becoming more and more repugnant. It was tempting to curl up in that bed of dirt, ignore the night creatures and drift into sleep—at least for a brief hour or two. But she fought the urge to rest. She couldn’t give in to weakness now, not after she’d come all this way. She had to concentrate, force herself to focus on what was imperative: saving herself. Think, Megha. Think hard!

  Gradually the cobwebs in her mind began to clear. An idea started to take shape as she squatted in the dirt: Kiran. He was Suresh’s cousin—Amma’s brother’s son. Maybe she could go to him for help. Although he was probably one of the most unlikely and unsuitable sources of assistance at a time like this, he was still a decent man, or he seemed to be. He had always been sympathetic and friendly toward her. He would surely not turn her away? Maybe she could borrow a little money from him. A few hundred rupees would be pocket change for a wealthy man like him. She would use the money to get on a bus to Hema’s house and then look for a job there. Afterwards, she’d find a way to return Kiran’s money.

  Her mind made up, she carefully pulled herself to her feet, and sighed with relief when she realized her legs and back felt normal, except for a general soreness and the burning pain in her foot. No broken bones. She brushed the mud and rotting garden debris off her sari and with the same motion she had employed earlier, hoisted herself up and jumped over the wall. Once again she was back in the alley.

  She stood still and glanced around her to make sure the man wasn’t holding vigil in a corner somewhere. Who knew what kinds of cat-and-mouse games the street bum was capable of? She stood still for a few seconds, her eyes and ears alert. Thankfully nothing happened. He was truly gone.

  She started to run once again.

  Chapter 4

  Kiran Rao drummed his long fingers on his car’s steering wheel while he grimly mulled over the night’s bizarre events. No matter how he examined the pieces of the puzzle before him, they continued to baffle the hell out of him.

  He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his palms to get the grittiness out. It was two hours past midnight and he’d had no sleep. He knew he looked unkempt in the slacks and T-shirt he had hurriedly pulled on, and a day’s growth of beard roughening his face.

  Kiran had woken up at five o’clock the previous morning to prepare for an early conference call at the office and put in a long day at work after that. Fatigue was beginning to set in, but he was too keyed up to go home to his bed. Besides, he needed to find out the facts surrounding the mystery and his nagging sense of dread. He had to do what he’d come here to do. Until he found out the truth for himself, there would be no rest for him.

  Although his car was parked some distance from his aunt, Chandramma Ramnath’s house, he could clearly hear the uproar inside the home. The two police constables who had arrived on bicycles were still in there, questioning the Ramnath family and taking notes, building a case against young Megha Ramnath, his cousin Suresh’s bride of one year, for spousal abandonment.

  Megha had allegedly disappeared, deserting her husband and in-laws.

  The front door of the house remained ajar, and a few curious neighbors, obviously disturbed and intrigued by the commotion so late at night, sat on their stoops, listening attentively. Before the sun came up in the morning, the gossip mill would be grinding out all the shameful facts of the Ramnaths’ story along with the embellishments: the pretty young bride had run away from her ugly husband and vicious mother-in-law. They’d probably shake their heads and wonder why such a lovely and refined girl had married into such a hideous and unsophisticated family in the first place.

  Wasn’t that the question a lot of people asked? Kiran often speculated about it himself. As far as he knew, her father had fallen on bad times and couldn’t afford a dowry; therefore he had settled for the first man belonging to the right caste who’d take his youngest daughter off his hands.

  Kiran couldn’t really blame Megha’s father for trying to do the right thing, but did the old man really have to do something that desperate without giving any thought to his daughter’s future? Had he even made an effort to look any further than the Ramnaths when he’d set out to find a suitable boy for Megha? There were surely other, more eligible young men who’d jump at the chance of marrying a girl like Megha. Instead, she’d been thrust into a dull marriage by her parents.

  Somehow Kiran was convinced that Megha had been coerced into the marriage. She would never have voluntarily agreed to marry Suresh Ramnath of all people. Though Kiran held a certain amount of family loyalty for his cousin Suresh, he doubted if Suresh would ever qualify as the ideal husband. Suresh and he had practically grown up together and he knew him like a brother. Suresh was always an impassive, introverted man with no interest in anything but looking after himself. He had nothing to offer a wife emotionally, financially, or intellectually, especially not a wife like Megha. What a bloody awful situation for poor Megha!

  Voices floated out the door once again, this time a bit louder. His aunt was always loud enough to be heard two streets away. Besides, Kiran had just come out of that house himself. He’d had more than enough of the emotionally charged scene, so he’d made a quick escape.

  At the moment though, Kiran’s mind was on Megha. Where was she? It was hard to imagine she was gone. Sweet, beautiful Megha was nowhere to be found. It was so uncharacteristic of the bright, lively young woman he’d come to know in the last few months that he was still in doubt about her deliberately abandoning her family. Even supposing she had, a young and naïve bride with no money couldn’t have gone too far.

  Her parents, who lived only a couple of kilometers away, had been contacted by the police, and apparently they were as stunned as everyone else. They hadn’t seen her or heard from her.

  Fear gnawed at Kiran as he speculated about Megha. Could she have been abducted? With her youth and movie-star looks she was a prime candidate for being kidnapped and sold into prostitution. What if right now she was being transported to some hellish brothel in town? Or worse yet, out of town? His hands gripped the wheel in frustration. What could he do to find her with no clues of any kind? The police were already doing their part, but they weren’t particularly bright or efficient or even dedicated to their task.

  The DSP, district superintendent of police, was a close friend of the family, and Kiran was tempted to request him to start a more comprehensive investigation instead of depending on those two clowns in there. But that would make people wonder why Kiran was so interested in the case. He couldn’t afford to have anyone suspect why he wanted to be so involved in the matter of Megha’s disappearance. So he’d decided to say nothing—at least for the moment.

  He shut his eyes and a picture of Megha rose in his mind: big, dark, trusting eyes surrounded by long lashes, a perfect nose, a smooth, fair complexion, a rosebud mouth, thick, wavy hair woven into a braid that fell to her waist, and the most heart-wrenchingly attractive smile.

  An intelligent girl with a keen interest in literature, sports, world events and politics,
Megha could hold her own in any intellectual conversation. Her eyes lit up with excitement whenever the topic turned to books and politics. She seemed to know so much about literature and the latest political scandals. Her life’s ambition was to become a journalist. With her natural curiosity and flair for words, she probably would make a first-rate journalist. If only she had a chance.

  Megha was a tall woman but a bit thin. There were fascinating curves in the right places, though. Even in simple and inexpensive saris she managed to look neat and elegant. For some reason he always pictured her in an urbane setting. She had an aura of refinement and had never seemed to fit in with the Ramnaths. God, she was uncommonly lovely! And so incredibly cheerful.

  She always had a kind word for everyone, even Kiran’s snobbish cousin, Kala, who never missed an opportunity to make snide remarks about Megha’s lack of expensive clothes or sophisticated accessories. Amma, who could put terror into people’s hearts and probably made Megha’s life a living hell, was treated with quiet respect by Megha. And that good-for-nothing, gutless Suresh somehow managed to earn affectionate glances from her. But how did she do it? How did she keep her spirit intact in the face of such gloom and tedium?

  He was positive Megha was not the type who’d pick up and run from her family. Something terrible had happened to drive her away, or else she’d been taken against her will.

  Kiran had been smitten with Megha since the day he’d laid eyes on her. It was on her wedding day. Like a fool he’d fallen in love with the girl who’d just become someone else’s wife—that someone else being his own cousin. At the wedding, Kiran had shaken hands and congratulated her and Suresh—pretended to wish them a long and happy marriage while envy for Suresh and lust for his gorgeous bride had plagued him all evening. Wow, what a girl! What an enchanting bride Suresh had bagged.