The smell of incense and burnt ghee hung heavy in the air—cloying, sacred, and unbearable. Smoke curled upward from the pyres like ghostly fingers, reaching for a sky too vast and indifferent to care. The faint echo of mantras still trembled in the distance, swallowed by the wind that carried with it the taste of ash.

Ruhi stood barefoot on the cold, uneven ground, her white dupatta soaked in the evening dew. Her hands trembled as she clutched the edge of her shawl, but her eyes—hollow, swollen, lifeless—refused to weep. The flames had devoured everything she had ever called home.

Her parents were gone. Two silhouettes she had lit herself. Now nothing but ash, scattered to the wind—the only two souls who had ever truly seen her.

She didn’t cry. She couldn’t. Grief had burned itself out long before the fire did, leaving behind only something brittle—something that cracked inside her chest every time she tried to breathe.

Ruhi was twenty-four. And all she had left in the world was her younger brother. The priest murmured something—a final blessing, a command to let go. But Ruhi didn’t hear it. Her gaze was lost somewhere between the dying embers and the past that still flickered behind her eyes.

When she closed them, she was seven again—sitting cross-legged on the floor of their one-room home in Kanpur. The fan overhead groaned with every turn, and the bulb flickered like it was deciding whether to live another minute. The room always smelled of haldi, kerosene, and her mother’s jasmine oil.

Her father would return home late from the welding shop, his palms blistered, his shirt stiff with dust and sweat. Yet he always smiled—the kind of tired, wholehearted smile that made hunger seem smaller than love. Her mother, her bangles chipped and red from sindoor, would feed him with her own hands, her laughter filling the small space like music.

Ruhi would sit beside them, scribbling chemistry notes by the light of that flickering bulb, her head bent in fierce concentration.

“Doctor banegi meri beti,” her father would say proudly, wiping his face with the corner of his kurta. (My daughter will become a doctor.)

And she’d grin back at him, eyes shining. “Aur aap dono ke liye ek bada ghar loongi.”
(And I’ll buy a big house for both of you.)

Even as a child, she carried her dreams like sacred vows. She’d fold sarees in the neighborhood shop after school and teach younger children their tables for a few rupees—never complaining, never stopping. Because she had a goal. And because she had two people who believed she could reach it.

At eighteen, she cracked NEET — one of the toughest exams in India. Her name printed in the local paper, her photo garlanded in the temple. Neighbors came to congratulate her; sweets were distributed. Her mother cried the entire evening—tears of pride and of disbelief.

Ruhi had hugged her tightly. “We did it, Ma,” she whispered, and her mother, pressing her daughter’s face into her chest, said, “No, you did it, beti. You made us proud.” It had felt like victory—small, fragile, perfect.

But dreams don’t always survive in homes where poverty eats away at the walls like rot. That March morning had been colder than usual. The city was quiet, except for the hiss of the pressure cooker and the sound of her mother’s bangles clinking nervously. Her parents had asked her to sit. Her father couldn’t meet her eyes. Her mother kept wringing the end of her dupatta.

“Ruhi,” her father began softly. “There’s… an opportunity. Rajat—your mother’s cousin’s son—he’s agreed to help. He’ll support your studies. And your brother’s school too.”

Her stomach had tightened. “What do you mean, help?”

Her mother’s eyes glistened. “He wants to marry you, beta.”

The silence that followed felt endless—like the pause between two heartbeats before a life changes forever.

Ruhi had shaken her head, voice breaking. “But Papaji… I don’t want to get married. I want to study. Please—”

Her father looked away, guilt turning his face to stone. “We can’t afford college, beti. This is the only way. He’s promised to take care of you.”

Her mother reached out, resting her hand on Ruhi’s head with a trembling sigh. “Sometimes, we do what hurts… so the ones we love can survive.”

And Ruhi had nodded, because she always obeyed. Because love, in her world, was sacrifice. At nineteen, she wore the red saree. Her mother fixed her bangles, trying to smile through her tears. Her father stood at the door, straightening his kurta again and again, his hands shaking too much to tie the turban properly.

Ruhi looked beautiful—the kind of beauty that comes from innocence and heartbreak woven together. Her eyes glowed with quiet fear. Her lips curved into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

And when the wedding chants began, she knew that the girl who once dreamed of white coats and stethoscopes had already been cremated long before her parents. The turmeric had barely faded from her wrists when reality began its slow suffocation.

Marriage was not a compromise. It was a sentence—a quiet, merciless one. Ruhi began serving hers the moment she stepped across the threshold of Rajat’s house—her hands trembling, her heart foolishly hopeful, her bangles still humming with the scent of haldi and jasmine. The doorway was decorated with marigolds; her mother’s tears were still wet on her cheek. Yet inside, the air was cold. Sterile. Not a home—just walls painted in silence.

There had been no honeymoon… No laughter…. No whispered promises of a shared future.

Only a list. A folded piece of paper Rajat handed her that first night—groceries, laundry, meal timings—like she was a maid he’d just hired. Then he turned and walked to his bedroom. Alone.

That night, Ruhi had stood outside his door for hours, the mehendi still dark on her palms. She didn’t know what she expected—perhaps a smile, a simple “Are you comfortable?”, or maybe even a cup of tea shared in awkward politeness. Something human.

What she got instead was the sharp echo of a slammed door. And a voice from the other side, flat and venomous:

“I agreed because your parents begged. Don’t flatter yourself.”

The words cut through her like a blade she never saw coming. She froze, her throat burning. Then he opened the door just enough to look at her—really look—his gaze slow, assessing, and full of disdain.

“They said you were smart,” he sneered. “They forgot to mention you look like a fat maid.”

It wasn’t just cruelty. It was contempt—deliberate, practiced, effortless. Something inside her twisted that night. Not shattered—not yet—just bent, like metal under too much weight.

The next morning, she wore the yellow kurti her mother had packed for her—the one with small embroidered sunflowers. She thought maybe he’d notice, maybe he’d say something kind... He did.

“Don’t wear tight clothes,” he said, his tone dripping with mockery. “You already look like a potato sack. Why add insult to injury?”

She stood still, hands fidgeting with her dupatta, cheeks burning. He walked away, humming, as if her humiliation were background noise.

Days blurred into months and years. The house was large but silent—the kind of silence that echoed even footsteps. Rajat’s mother lived in the village; his father was dead. Only servants, locked rooms, and a husband who never spoke unless it was to correct, insult, or command.

Every word he spoke chipped away at her—piece by piece, day by day. He mocked her accent when she spoke English. Mocked her reading habits. Mocked her skin tone, her body, and her very existence.

“You’re just an investment,” he told her once, not even bothering to lower his voice. “A deal. I pay your brother’s fees, and you keep this house clean and your legs open when I need.”

It was not a marriage. It was servitude dressed as duty. And like clockwork, once a month, he would come to her bed… No words…. No tenderness…no pretense of intimacy.

He would take what he wanted—cold, mechanical, detached—as if even desire disgusted him. Then he’d roll away, clean himself, and leave without a glance, without a sound. Ruhi would lie still afterward, the fan spinning above her like time mocking her stillness. Tears would slip silently into her hairline as she whispered to the darkness:

“It’s for Aarav. It’s for his future. I can take it. I have to.”

She said it every night like a mantra, a survival prayer. But the words started to sound hollow, even to her own ears. The girl who once dreamed of saving lives now lived like a ghost inside her own—a house without laughter, without light, without meaning. The walls absorbed her silence. Her reflection began to fade. And her soul—once soft and curious and full of wanting—turned into a vacant home.

A place where even hope had stopped knocking.