Jhirkala is a small town, which mainly is filled with dust and old traditions, the kind of place where everyone knows your name, your family history, and what you are 'supposed' to do with your life. It's a place where sun beats down mercilessly, and the wind carries whispers of gossip that settle on your skin like stain you can never wash off.
I've lived here for all the fifteen years of my life, I hate breathing in this heavy air, feeling the weight of expectations like some invisible handcuffs tied tight round my wrists. For me Jhirkala is not home, it's CAGE, and the lock on the cage are traditions, strict rules and fear.
My sister Manaly, was two years older than me.
She was everything Jhirkala says a girl shouldn't be.
Big dreams in her eyes, wild smile that refused to be in control of old traditions, she was a total rebel in a town that demands silence.
On the other hand i was quiet but watching and waiting at the same time.
Manaly loved books the same way girls her age loved to bs Obedient and dreamed of marriage, she dreamed about universities of science and mathematics far beyond this town, and also the ideas that stretched beyond these narrow lanes.
She use to read by candlelight for hours after everyone fall asleep, scribbling notes in her tattered notebooks, sketching plans for a future Jhirkala would never imagine.
That night I remember every detail like a deep wound in my chest.
The moon was high, but the courtyard was dark except for the flicker of a lone lantern.
Then the slap came, sharp, brutal and loud. Manaly staggered but didn't fall.
"you'll learn respect," the uncle hissed, grabbing her arm roughly.
I felt like I was drowning, I wanted to scream, to run to her defense, but I was frozen in place.
My throat closed up, my hands clenched tight.
The slaps kept coming followed by harsh strokes of wooden sticks, not just from him but from others who had gathered, faces dark and unforgiving. Then came the silence.
She collapsed, her body swollen, blood on her lips, but it wasn't just bruises.
It was her eyes.
They were open, staring straight at the sky, and something in them was... gone.
I rushed to her, screaming her name over and over. My mother's sobs filled the air.
Someone shouted to bring water.
But I knew, I knew the second I touched her cold hand.
My sister, my rebel, my inspiration, my fire, was no more.
They said it was an accident, They said she was too stubborn.
They said maybe now the othe girls will learn. But I didn't learned what they wanted.
I learned something else.
I learned that I would have to get out of this hell.
That I'd have to fight.
That I l'd have to become something so powerful, so loud, so impossible to ignore, that even the ghosts of Jhirkala would hear my name and be scared.
I cried for days.
I didn't ate
I didn't spoke
I didn't even opened her notebooks, too scared of the pain.
But one morning, I found her old tattered diary under the pillow, her handwriting messy from excitement, the last thing she wrote was a line from a book she loved:
"Some women fear the fire. Some women simply becomes it"
That's when I decided.
I would run.
Not away, but towards something, something that would bring her dream to reality, something that would give us freedom, something that we were never allowed to imagine.
I started saving every penny i could.
The coins and notes given during festivals, the notes folded in my palm the small amounts from errands I ran quietly. I sold old things, I hid money inside books, under floorboards.
Every coin was whisper of hope.
I began to change in ways no one could see.
I still walked the same dusty streets, my dupatta pinned tight like a well-behaved girl.
I still fetched water, helped my mother with errands, kept my eyes lowered when talking to elders.
But inside, I was a volcano learning to hold its lava. Every word I didn't spoke, every question I didn't ask, every scream I swallowed, it built me.
I started spending more time in the school library, tucked away in corners with literature textbooks I barely understood and newspapers weeks old.
It wasn't about the words at first, it was about the escape.
About sitting in silence and dreaming loud.
The librarian, old Mrs. Lata, noticed me once.
She didn't asked questions.
She just slid a book across the table "Wings of Fire" by A.P.J. Abdul Kalam - and said
"This one changes lives. Maybe it will change yours."
I read it in three days.
At night, I would sit on terrace, where Manaly studied under candlelight, stared at the sky where Manaly used to look, wondering if she was there, watching.
And suddenly I stopped feeling like victim of Jhirkala instead i felt like a seed it buried too deep, without thinking, it would grow out through cracks. The other girls looked at me differently now.
Maybe because I no longer giggled at their gossip. Maybe because I no longer tried to fit in.
One of them; Seema, whispered to me once during a free period,
You're changing.
You talk less but your eyes are louder.
She was right.
I didn't knew what I was becoming.
But I knew what I was no longer willing to be, silent, small, scared.
I started opening Manaly's notebooks.
Page by page, pain turning into power.
There were formulas, notes, even doodles of rockets and stars.
One page had a list titled
"Things I will do when I will be free."
Ride a bullet train
Eat chocolate cakes for breakfast
See the ocean
Learn different languages
I chant the list like a prayer .
Some nights, I'd hold that diary tight to my chest and instead of crying I gathered strength.
Then came the day when my uncle walked past me and didn't even glance.
I realized he didn't notice me anymore, not really.
I was not any concern in this house.
And that?
That was my greatest power.
They forgot about my existence, and so I started to plan in silence.
I learned bus routes.
I memorized landmarks
I watched youtube tutorials on a friend's phone under the pretense of checking schoolwork.
I became the girl with a hundred secrets and
one hidden but loud truth...