Nia needed them, all these females, from four years old Astha to sixty three years old Sarita mai(mother) as much as they needed her. They were her family, along with her mother and grandma. Her family was her motivation; to live, to struggle and to strive forward. She did not need some heartless, traitor in her life. 'Oh god! Why did I have to meet that piece of callous shit at my best friend's party? Why does he have to be Nicholas' best buddy?' She groaned.
The silence had retreated from the lives of her mom and her grandma ever since she established the charitable organization. They all needed one another but Nia also wanted every single girl and woman in the shelter home to be strong, independent and live life as they wanted. She wanted them to be strong but she also wanted them to understand that it was okay to be weak sometimes.
Nia had a great understanding of life, so she knew how compassion and inclusion could help a person who had felt being left out. The parents, the husband, the children at your old age and the supposed love of life, who were to love and take care of you, were also the people who could hurt you the most. They hurt you, then left you alone to lick your own wounds. It would take a lot to come to term with the fact that your family was no better than the enemy on the road.
You would lose faith in yourself, you would lose faith in everyone, because you were betrayed by the ones who you thought were your own. Nia could comprehend the shock, the unwillingness by the women to believe the betrayal. She saw it in the eyes of Sarita mai, in the eyes of Mahua, Radha and the others. Nia deciphered their pain, embraced them for who they were, taught them to have faith.
The incident five years ago left a lot of scars in her own life. She not only lost her grandpa, Nia had to face extra hurdles as an aftermath of the farce that her engagement party ultimately turned out to be. There were some people who were encouraged by her grandpa's death into bullying her family and her. Those were people who thought that three women could do nothing against them.
A few scrapulous relatives wanted to snatch the big agricultural farm from them. A few of them wanted to sell the land to big businessmen from the city. Some wanted her mom and grandma's shares in a certain company. Once while on hiking to the mountain she was lucky enough to escape from being raped by the son of a family friend. That man was out for revenge as Nia rejected his proposition.
The scoundrel could not accept that he was rejected and he was not satisfied with hurling taunts at her, that her fiance never turned up as she was ugly. He tried to destroy her by raping her. While struggling to take care of the broken women she overcame her own weakness, sorrow and the urge to take revenge on the demon who was behind all her miseries.
If her supposed fiance was against the alliance he could have cancelled the engagement beforehand, saving her family from humiliation and miseries. Nia might have wanted to forget that incident and move on but she was not easy on those who attacked her as they thought she, her mom and grandma, they all had turned weak without a man in their lives. She grew stronger and protected what was her and her family's.
She would never accept that rejection by a man could make a woman weak. She showed her enemies her strength and forced them to back off. Nia told her mom and grandma,
"We're not going to be any less strong only because we have no man to stand by us. We'll show them how wrong they are to think that they can snatch from us what is ours."
Nia had started the organization with only a few abandoned women in the beginning and her hard work paid off, resulting in the present size and strength of the organization. Her mom and grandma helped a lot, working their hardest to make Nia's endeavour a success. The first woman she took in was Sarita Bora.
There was no plan for any organization when she brought the old destitute woman to home. Nia did that as a solitary act of kindness, to provide to the woman food and a place to stay in, as she could not leave behind the frail old woman wrapped up in rags in a winter evening outside a temple on a hilltop.
Then Nia came across Mahua Majhi, who she saved from a man who could not take No for an answer. Men, be they from higher or lower strata of the society had difficulty in accepting rejection from women. Mahua was from a tribal community, who had big dreams about the future. She was a 17 years old girl from a poor family, studying in the senior secondary school despite all the odds. A fop from her village took fancy on her and proposed marriage. Definitely she rejected him.
Nia who was visiting the area to gather some local variety of paddy seeds, rescued Mahua from the group of men chasing the girl to kidnap her. She contacted the women welfare department and Mahua was relocated at the government women shelter in the district headquarter. The girl refused to let go of her. With puppy eyes she pleaded to Nia,
"Please take me away with you. Don't leave me here. My parents will come and take me away to sell me to that bastard. They can do anything for money and liquor."
Both Nia and Mahua were lucky. The chairperson of the state welfare department, Deepak Seth helped. Nia brought the girl home with her and left her under the care of her mom. It was then she thought of doing something on a bigger scale for women like Sarita Bora, their domestic help Tara Boro and young girl like Mahua.
Tara's husband drove her away from home as she was barren. With a broken arm and two black eyes when she reached their home four years ago, Nia had Tara's husband arrested for his atrocious behaviour to his wife. She had no qualms about sending Tara's husband to the prison. Justice must be served to stop the rogues from feeling powerful.
Sarita Bora, whom everyone now called Sarita mai was an even more heartrending case. It still hurt Nia to remember what that woman had gone through. Meeting that woman more than four years ago on a hazy winter evening, outside a temple heralded a new beginning for both of them.
A still bitter Nirvana Sonowal achieved nirvana from her bitterness, anger and the urge to take on a journey of revenge. Great responsibility required levelheadedness. Being in charge of so many people, being someone who others looked up to, Nia forgot personal grievances. She embarked on a completely different journey, strengthening herself and others on the way. At last she had been doing what heart told her to do. At last she carved her own path to walk.
PS : Mai means mother, sometimes used as a form of love and respect.