Five months later, I got the opportunity that I was waiting for. I went to visit my mother and stayed with her for a couple of days. I behaved properly and did not show any signs of discontent. My mother did not suspect anything. By the third night I spent at my mother’s place, I had everything prepared. I needed my degree certificate and I had managed to find it, finally.

I had packed a small bag of old clothes and hidden it in a safe place. I ran away with the little money I could find in the house. I left the city where I grew up and went to an alien but beautiful city where most of my friends live, who stood with me in my worst times. I wouldn’t have had the courage to leave my house otherwise.

To this day, nobody knows where I live and what I do.

However, I couldn’t resist telling my mom using the same tactic she used on me for so many years and she couldn’t say anything. Now I am in a friendly city, stringing words of a strange language to make a living. But at least I have my independence and I am realizing the potential that Deepak said I have.

It has been almost two years. I wonder if he is married by now. I haven’t looked back ever since and I know they won’t come looking for me because of the threatening letter I posted to them with love. I didn’t feel the need to end the incestuous relationship that I was forced into, it didn’t have a name and yes, I finally accepted it.

Every time I see my friend Nandini and her husband, a strange sorrow tugs at my heart. It could have been my life. The smile that Sudhanshu gets every time he looks at his wife could have been the smile on my husband’s face.

Nandini is a happy woman. Perhaps arranged marriage is not a bad thing all the time.

But there is still such a thing as ‘consent’.

Also, read: A bride’s heartfelt letter to her father!