ONE
A fragile and veiled woman, holding the hand of a fifteen year old girl and carrying a newborn baby in her arms, reached the huge compound gate of St. Peter's Church at Solan, Himachal Pradesh. She had heard that unwanted children were given shelter there… Mother Sebastian, the head of 'Tender Heart' orphanage was an image of Mother Mary… very caring.
The women climbed two steps to reach the entrance door and found an empty basket by the wall.They laid the baby down in it. The elderly woman turned to leave the orphanage while wiping away her tears.
Their journey for the unknown began.
Margaret opened the church door early in the morning with a broom in her hand to clean the threshold and her eyes caught the baby in the basket.
This was more or less an everyday affair but she was surprised to see the quiet baby wearing a sweet smile on her lips as the loud crying of the abandoned babies generally woke her up… the newborn must have already realised that there's no one in that cruel world to value her tears and so... she's extraordinarily silent.
Margaret was worried but lifted the delicate and godly thing and pressed the child to her breast lovingly. A small piece of paper fell down while picking her up which read, Urmil Gautam.
After baptisation, the baby was named Urmil Veronica Gautam.
Kaushalya Gautam walked a long way with her young daughter Sonam to reach the door of a women's Home at Shimla on that cold and wintry night. The slender body of the fifteen year old new mother was unable to bear the hardship of any more walking and her eagle mother was determined to take care and protect her from all evils… by giving her a safe shelter especially away from her father's sexual desire.
Kaushalya felt that Sonam wanted to share something with her but was hesitant to respond to her mom's queries.
Sonam was quite a docile girl who was ready to tolerate any sort of torture but to protest against it. Kaushalya remembered the occasion of her daughter's first menstruation day, a couple of years back. The terrified girl was found sitting quietly in a corner of the bathroom and crying... who broke down when her mother hugged her.
"I'm going to die maa."
"Why Sonu beta, what happened?" Kaushalya was worried.
After all Kaushalya was a mother and she could realise in an instant. The girl did not stop crying though her mother tried to make her happy by explaining about her womanhood while wiping up the dripping blood drops from her legs.
A few days later Sonam's father Ramesh Gautam had appeared like a comet nearly after twelve years of absence… he had disappeared leaving his infant daughter and wife in the hands of destiny.
A woman like Kaushalya who was born and brought up in the hilly terrains could manage to cope with the unbearable cold and rainy weather of the mountains and raised her daughter alone with utmost care and love... she even managed to send her to the neighborhood Anganwari to make her literate though she had to toil much and remain starved in their unrepaired- broken hut.
But as the demon returned, he started carrying out his unspeakable oppression over her timid wife and… now the teenage girl was there too, to be taken care of.
After the hard and difficult day, Kaushalya used to fall asleep as soon as she lay down but her mind has been in a great upheaval for the past few days. She was unable to find the reason behind Sonam's grief and crying though she had asked her several times but Sonam remained silent.
She Couldn't sleep that night and was tossing on her bed thinking about the reason behind her daughter’s sorrow... was she sick? She must be taken to the local vaidya for a check up.
Ramesh had been wandering around since he came back… he didn’t even return home most of the days.
Kaushalya got out of the bed when she heard some unusual noise coming from her daughter's room.The silly girl was very scared of rats. The house was not repaired for a long time and was full of rat holes who picked up the earth everyday and the extra cleaning work was a daily task.
She walked slowly and stood in front of her daughter's room to look for her.
The door was not locked. She pushed it open and gasped to find two naked bodies on the mat… Even in that dark room, she didn’t fail to recognise Ramesh and Sonam. Kaushalya turned to a statue. Anger, surprise and sorrow engulfed her to find her husband fulfilling his lust with his own juvenile daughter.
As soon as she came to senses, the strength of a mad elephant overpowered her slender being. She ran down to the courtyard to break a thick branch from a big tree and started hitting her husband's bare body as hard as she could.
The mother and daughter spent the whole night in each other's arms. The girl continued crying while her mother's eyes blazed in anger.
Kaushalya's husband, Sonam's father Ramesh disappeared again after satisfying his own desires.
Kaushalya noticed the change in her daughter's physical appearance in a few month's time. She herself had witnessed the harassment that had occurred to her daughter. Undecided about her next step, she asked for help from her neighbour and sympathiser friend, Nirmalya. Nirmalya sent Kaushalya and her pregnant daughter Sonam to her abandoned cottage in Barog village.
The immature girl, Sonam's physical condition made it impossible to terminate her pregnancy and she was forced to give birth to the unwanted child, the fruit of her father's lust at the age of fifteen.
As they could hand over a one- day old child to the orphanage, Tender Heart at St. Peter's Church, Kaushalya walked all the way to the home for the destitute women near Shimla she had heard about, in search of a shelter for both of them.
The superintendent of the home took them to refuge in the ashram and said "Tomorrow a bus will be leaving for Manali. You will be taken there and an arrangement will surely be made."
Mother and daughter reached the Hadimba* Mata Temple near Manali the next day.
*Bheem's demon wife Hidimba is known as Hadimba and worshipped as goddess all over Himachal Pradesh.
After crossing a piece of forest behind Hadimba Mata Temple through a narrow path, Kaushalya and Sonam saw a row of huts… made in the same pattern of Hadimba temple and found shelter in one of them. It is said that no one goes back empty handed from the door of Hadimba Mata, the demonic wife of Bheema.
