Becoming Her

Meena did not announce her departure like a brave decision. She prepared for it quietly, carefully, as if fear itself could hear her footsteps. On the morning she left, she checked her certificates again, folded her clothes neatly, and stood still for a long moment near the door. Her face showed determination, but her eyes carried doubt. Police training was not a promise. It was only a chance. We had already decided what to tell others. In the village, truth spreads faster than fire, especially when it involves a woman stepping outside her expected place. If she failed the physical tests, the same mouths that encouraged her would mock her. So we said she had gone for exam coaching and to stay with relatives for some time. Saying it felt dishonest, but hiding felt safer than explaining At the bus stand, she did not ask for reassurance. She only said, “This is difficult. I know.” I nodded, pretending confidence I did not feel. When the bus left, it took more than her body away. It took c...

Chapter 2 - Permission Is Never Just Permission The debts didn’t come all at once. They came disguised as hope. First, the borewell failed. Not completely—just enough to make us believe the next one would work. The second borewell failed more honestly. By then, hope had already signed papers in my name. Seeds were bought on credit. Fertilizer came with smiles and casual promises after harvest, after harvest. When the harvest failed, the promises stayed, sitting heavy in the air like unfinished sentences. The men from the cooperative bank began coming regularly. They never raised their voices. They never threatened. That made it worse. They sat on my veranda as if it belonged to them, legs crossed, notebooks resting comfortably on their thighs, speaking in calm tones—rainfall, interest rates, government schemes—as though they were discussing weather, not the slow dismantling of my life. I nodded, said *yes* at the right places, offered coffee I could barely afford. Meena watched everyth...

Chapter - 1 Kandamalli Puram Changed First. Then Our House Did.  Kandamalli Puram was not a village where change announced itself loudly. Things shifted there the way seasons did—quietly, without permission, long after people had decided nothing would ever be different. In Kandamalli Puram, memories clung harder than dust. A man’s past mistakes were remembered longer than his children’s names, and debts were spoken of with more seriousness than weddings or funerals. Respect was not measured by how you treated people, but by how much land you could point to when asked who you were. And a woman’s place—her boundaries, her silence, her obedience—were so firmly agreed upon that nobody ever felt the need to explain them out loud. I was born into that certainty.My name was Ramesh. Farmer. Son of a farmer. Husband to Meena. The land behind our house had my father’s sweat in it, my grandfather’s bones somewhere beneath it, and my own pride scattered across its dry stretches. I wore my mous...