Between Virar and Andheri
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By Quiline Kakoty
The music in the bar was soft and the lights were dim. Three glasses clinked.
“I was never born bitter,” Ashi said quietly, swirling her vodka. “I didn’t wake up one day and decide to become this sharp-edged person you both call ‘sariyal’…life carved me this way.”
Payal and Nayana exchanged a glance. They had never seen her this open.
“I was born in a lower middle-class Dalit family,” Ashi continued. “In my house, the drawing room was not for girls. Especially not for me. If I stood there watching TV for five minutes, my father would say, ‘Go to the kitchen. That’s your place.’ He made it very clear that I could study only till he finds a guy for me to marry.”
Nayana frowned. “That sounds horrific.”
“It was horrific, but it was a routine for me,” Ashi replied. “Even in school, I never sat in the front row. No one wrote down this rule ofcourse, but everyone knew that those seats were for upper-caste students.”
“Why didn’t you fight?” Nayana asked.
Payal spoke in the middle, “Coming from a progressive society like Assam, it is easy for you to say Nayana, but I can related with Ashi as I have seen such things happening back in my hometown in UP.”
Ashi gave a faint smile. “You fight when you know you have the right to fight. I didn’t even know I had rights.”
Payal nodded slowly. “It’s easy to judge from outside.”
Ashi continued, “I wasn’t allowed to make friends also. My father said if he ever saw me speaking to one, that would be my last day in school. So I never made friends. I went, studied, came back. That was my world.”
She paused, then took a deep breath.
“After Class 12, my father kept his promise. He got me married to a man I had never spoken to. I saw him properly only on the day his family came to fix the wedding. He looked twice my age.”
“And you just… agreed?” Payal whispered.
“There was no choice.”
She leaned back.
“I thought maybe marriage would bring freedom. Maybe I could sit in the drawing room. Maybe I could laugh. Maybe I could go out with my husband.”
Nayana’s voice was soft. “Did it?”
Ashi laughed, but not happily.
“I wasn’t even allowed to sit in my own bedroom during the day. Honeymoon? I wasn’t allowed to sit next to him in front of others. If we went out, he would step out first and whisper, ‘Come after five minutes.’ And do you know where we went?”
“Where?” Payal asked.
“The vegetable market.”
Silence fell.
“I don’t call him a bad man,” Ashi said. “Just… obedient…to his parents…more than to himself.”
She stared at her glass.
“I didn’t know what love feels like yet, but got pregnant with my first child. For me, love was whatever happened between us in the darkness. No conversation. No consent. I didn’t even know these words.”
Nayana clenched her jaw. “No one taught you that you could say no?”
“They taught me the opposite. Before marriage, some women in my family sat me down and told me that I shall never refuse my husband. That’s my duty,” Ashi said. “When I was pregnant with my second daughter, I had a craving for pani puri. Just pani puri. My husband told me to follow him after five minutes, like always. We went out in the market and we were quietly eating panipuris. And suddenly one of is far related aunt saw us.”
Her voice hardened.
“She shouted in the market. Called me shameless. Said I was roaming around like a prostitute. The next day, my parents were called. Everyone decided I had dishonored the family. They told me I couldn’t stay there.”
“And your husband?” Payal asked.
“He said nothing.”
Nayana whispered, “You must have felt so alone.”
“I looked at my mother. She couldn’t even look back at me. My father signaled me to stay, to adjust. But something inside me broke. I left.”
“Finally, freedom,” Payal said hopefully.
Ashi shook her head.
“At my parents’ house, my father said I had destroyed his pride. That no married girl returns to her parents’ home. A month later, I gave birth to my second daughter. He said, “Now you have become more of a burden. You should have died instead.”
Everyone was silent.
“For days, I cried silently. One afternoon, I was washing clothes in the bathroom. The radio was playing. Then a song came — ‘Zara si dil mein de jagah tu…zara sa apna le bana’
She smiles a bit.
“My hands were dirty with soap and baby mess. But I picked up the radio and pressed it to my ear. Something moved inside me. For the first time in my life, I felt… something. A warmth. A pull. I didn’t know if it was love, but I felt alive.”
Payal smiled softly. “Emran Hashmi?”
Ashi nodded. “Every time his song played, I felt like someone somewhere understood desire. Romance. That it wasn’t dirty. That maybe I wasn’t wrong for wanting more.”
Nayana laughed gently. “Wow, you turned a ‘kissing star’ into your emotional awakening.”
“Exactly,” Ashi grinned. “But I didn’t have time for fantasies. My father’s taunts grew worse. So I decided to leave again, and this time for good.”
“How?” Payal asked.
“I had some shagun money that guests and relatives used to give to my daughters. That was it. I saw a handwritten note outside a shop that said ‘SALESMAN REQUIRED.’ I asked for the job, but the owner refused saying that he wanted a boy for this job. I begged in front of him to give me that job. I agreed to sweep, clean, or do anything he might want me to do.”
“And he agreed?” Nayana asked.
“Reluctantly. For very little pay. I rented a tiny one-room place. The salary wasn’t enough. I gave most of the food to my elder daughter. I was breastfeeding to my younger daughter, which made me hungry very frequently. Do you know what I used to do for that? I soaked dry roti in water and gulp it down to fill my stomach.”
Payal’s eyes filled.
“I was broken,” Ashi said softly. “But when you have two little daughters looking at you with hopes, the option of giving up and collapsing also feels like luxury.”
She smiled faintly.
“After six months, I found a job in a soap factory. Then another. Then I became a helper at an all-women gym. I worked day and night. I observed everything the trainer did. For four years, I watched and learned.”
Nayana and Payal looked at Ashi with hopes. As if they have finally connected all the dots.
“Then I became a trainer.”
They both broke into applause.
“I wasn’t allowed to train everyone at first. But I kept working. After eight years total, I shifted to a big gym in Andheri. Rich clients. Celebrities. Somewhere between Virar and Andheri… the poor and helpless Archana disappeared, and the strong and fierce trainer Ashi was born.”
Payal and Nayana almost had tears in their eyes.
Payal said, “And now you’ve won Best Trainer of the Year award. Your daughter got admission in a govt college, and the little one is studying fashion. That’s huge Ashi! Really!”
Ashi proudly says, “Ya, now they keep telling me, ‘Mumma, now it’s your time.’
Hearing this, Nayana gently asks, “Do you…do you ever feel the need of a partner?”
Ashi shook her head, peaceful. “I don’t want a partner. I want peace. Respect. My own gym, which is opening soon.”
She looked at them both.
“And I want friendships like this. You two never forced me to speak. But you waited till I open up on my own. That matters.”
Payal reached across the table and held her hand. “We’ve known you for two years. I thought you were just strict and ambitious. I didn’t know you were… this strong.”
“You’re the bravest woman I know,” Nayana said. “If you allow me, I want to write your story someday.”
Ashi laughed. “Writer sahiba, write whatever you want. Just don’t forget to mention my eternal love for Emran Hashmi in my story.”
The three of them burst into laughter, raised their glasses again, and toasted, not just to success, but to survival, to friendship to freedom.
And to the girl who once found love in a song on a radio.
Quiline Kakoty is a writer, translator, gender activist, and a blogger based in Delhi. She has edited a feminist anthology in Assamese called Napay, Loingik Samatar Pratyahban. Apart from these, she has co-authored in a children’s fiction anthology called Khelu Aha Nana Khel in Assamese, Stories Around Us in English, which was published by Mithaas publication, and a feminist anthology in Hindi called Algani Pe Auraten. She writes in Assamese, English, and Hindi. She is a regular writer in several Assamese magazines and newspapers.