Anny's mornings started with the call of her mother. But the mornings were not that much refreshing for them like the riches. A new morning, a new day always gave Tara a headache because her daughter would need some food and the house was always had scarcity of food grains. There was always inadequate amount of food in the kitchen, inadequate food grain in the rice-tin. Kama was neither a good husband nor a good father. He was too selfish to think of his family. He hardly ever gave money to Tara for the household on time. Even sometimes he snatched Tara's hard-earned money to buy his desi liquor. He preferred buying liquor to be more important than having a full plate meal in front her daughter. Literally he was never a fathet ! It was Tara who was carrying the household alone in her tired shoulder. She used to complete all the house chores by 10 a.m. in the morning. Then she was out of the house, after sending Anny to school she was on her way to the nearby factory. She was a labour there. She worked hard for 8 hours there and earned very little amount of money, which was the only reliable resource for her to feed her family. She then had some ration on the way back to home for next day. This was their daily routine. Often the ration wasn't enough for four-person's meal. Whenever there was a shortage for food, Tara would gave most of the food to the family and herself remained starved, having a glass of water and some flakes of sugar. She would even kept food for Kama who would beat her to satisfy his ego. Kama was a lazy person, strolling here and there all day, then beating wife at night after getting drunk, the same wife who was earning and giving food on his plate. Such a shameless traitor he was ! And even after seeing all the "nobel" work done by her son, Kama's mother Beni always found reasons to blame her daughter-in-law Tara. Only one person whom Kama respected a bit was his Beni. No matter she could change her son or not but at least she could try....but the truth is she never did so, even always defended Kama's wrongful works.
Beni lived with them, cheered his son to beat Tara and was fed with Tara's hard-earned money only. Simply Tara was sandwiched between the evil mother-son duo while trying her best to provide food and education to her daughter so that she could get rid of this prison. Kama was unemployed drunkard from the very first day of the marriage. Simply Tara's life was never a happy life, it was next to hell. As Anny grew up with time, her fear for her father was turned into hatred, a sheer hatred. She used to question her mother,
- "Why did you marry him ?"
- "There was no other option then, Anny ! Sophisticate people marry sophisticate people. And your Grandpa was a poor man and he couldn't afford dowry. and even brother was getting irritated because I was getting older. Your grandpa couldn't manage a better groom with all those conditions. So I had no options left...I had become a liability in my own family....Hope no girl ever experience this, Anny !" Tara heaved a sigh. Then she used to say - "This is the reason I say you should study well, earn money and get established, Anny !" while cooking and tasting lentil soup whether it tasted desired or not. She always had a modest smile on her face.
Tara was never happy but she had such a tranquil temperament and had a god-gifted smile on her face.