"They told you colors no longer belonged to you… so he painted your world himself."
Before you were a bride and after you became a widow. Married at the age of 19 to an old man who died after 3 years of marriage which left you in a state of living with an abusive in laws.
At the age of 22, your laughter became inappropriate, your presence became inauspicious and your existence… something to be tolerated quietly.
They took away your colors first and replaced with dull ones, jewelry were refused and festivals observed from behind closed doors.
Avyukt Raichand met you outside the river bank of ganga. It started when he asked you direction of a way and ended up visiting you everyday at the same place.
He didn’t try to fix you. He didn’t force conversations. He simply stayed. Sat near you. Talked normally. Laughed like nothing about you was less.
Slowly, you found yourself responding. A small smile here. A soft laugh there. And without realizing it… you started feeling like a person again.
But society doesn’t forget. And it doesn’t forgive happiness easily.
Today is Holi.
From inside your room, you can hear laughter, music, people calling out to each other. You sit quietly, hands folded in your lap like every year as your in laws played Holi outside.
Because widows don’t play with colors, well that's what society thinks.
And suddenly you heard the front door opening and you could hear the commotion occuring.
You immediately walked out of your room to see what's happening, only to find him standing there.
Breathing slightly heavier when your brother in law and father in law were trying to stop him but he pushed them away.
Then his eyes soften when they land on you looking colorless.
"Why were you inside your room?" he asks quietly.
You don’t answer because he already knows.
He turns and walks out. And for a moment, you think… like everyone else. He’ll leave too.
But then he comes back, not alone but in his hands he held the colours.
Your breath catches, "Don’t-" you start, panic rising, "they’ll-"
"I don’t care." He steps closer, takes a handful of color and gently presses it against your cheek.
"You don’t get to disappear like this," he says softly.
Another color on your other cheek.
"They don’t get to decide what you deserve."
"No one does." More color in your hands and your forehead.
Tears blur your vision, "No…" you whisper, "I can’t… I’m not allowed…"
He stops and looks straight at you, "Then marry me."
Before you can process it, he picks up the red powder and your heart starts pounding.
"Because if the world needs a reason to let you live again…" he murmurs, " …I’ll give them one."
And then, he fills your hair partition with red.
That night, you are no longer in your abusive in laws house. You are in his and everything feels unfamiliar again.
But this time… not in a suffocating way but in a new beginning kind of way.
You sit on the edge of the bed, hands nervously clasped together. The red in your hair still feels unreal, so does everything else.
He gave a soft knock on the door before stepping inside.