There was once a little girl, born like crores upon crores of little girls, who deserved to be loved, and who would have done anything to have been given it. And like crores upon crores of little girls, she did not receive love. She received only abuse. She was seen as a body, and this started young. This started before she knew anything about what anything meant.
Was this a test? Was this all that life was meant to be?
***
Mother thinks.
***
The girl was born to a family from Jharkhand, at a time when the family had freshly migrated to the city of Delhi. Neither the man nor the woman had work or a source of income or family connections to take advantage of. They had come with their full family of eight, none of whom they could look after.
As a result, the girl never came to know who her birth parents were. She was vaguely conscious of the fact that she had been sold to a family who lived in Karol Bagh because her parents wanted her to have an infinitely better life as a maid to the Bedi family rather than living off of the streets and begging. What else could have been the reason? she concluded. Why would they have been so quick to abandon their own child?
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