“I am really tired, Maa. I cannot do this anymore,” whispered the newlywed wife, her hair unbound and feet heavy with exhaustion, her voice cracking under the weight of unshed tears. “I feel like I’m losing myself. I don’t want to be this person, this ... lokkhi bou.”
Shakchunni stepped closer, her presence both fierce and maternal. “You are my strong daughter,” Shakchunni said, her voice carrying both sadness and resolve. “But even strength needs rest. Let your mother help you now.”
The wife’s tears spilled over as she leaned into Shakchunni, her body trembling with relief. For the first time, someone had seen her pain, acknowledged her exhaustion. “Will you ... will you help me?”
“Go. Rest in my tree, where no one will find you. I will take your place. Let me bear the weight for now.”
At the Brahmin’s house, the wife’s return seemed seamless at first glance. Her hands moved deftly, stirring pots over a fire that blazed brighter than usual. The meals she prepared were plentiful, yet her appetite, once delicate and polite, now seemed insatiable. Her movements had a peculiar rhythm -- too efficient, almost otherworldly. While pounding spices or sweeping the courtyard, her feet often joined the work, as if she didn’t quite need her hands. There was an unnatural gleam in her eyes and the faint hum she carried, like a song from the forest still clinging to her.
The mother-in-law noticed first. “Something is not right,” she told her son. “Your wife ... she eats like a beast and behaves strangely. She is not the same.” The son, initially dismissive, began to observe her more closely and saw what his mother described. When the husband could no longer deny the suspicions, he sought the help of a tantrik. The tantrik arrived with his bag of spells and rituals, creating a fire that blazed unnaturally bright in the courtyard.
Shakchunni, sensing the threat, stood her ground. But the tantrik’s incantations forced her to falter. He trapped her within the circle of fire, the flames licking at her form, forcing her to reveal her true self. “Return the wife you have taken!” the tantrik demanded, his voice booming. “Or these flames will burn away what power you hold.” The flames danced in Shakchunni’s empty gaze, their flicker reflected in the hollow depths of her spectral eyes.
‘Smile,’ Shakchunni’s voice echoed faintly. ‘Never let them see you cry’
Beyond the fire, the villagers stood in tight knots, their whispers crackling louder than the wood. Wide eyes darted between her and the tantrik’s chants, their fear painted across faces twisted with mistrust. A woman in the crowd clutched her child tightly, muttering prayers, while an elder spat at the ground, his glare sharp with disdain.
The murmurs grew louder -- "jealous witch," "stealer of wives/husbands." A single tear, almost imperceptible, glimmered for a moment before it faded, like her fleeting hope they’d ever understand.
Shakchunni had no choice. With a heavy heart, she returned to the forest to bring the wife back. As the wife prepared to leave her sanctuary, her shoulders slumped with the weight of the life she was returning to.
“Don’t let them know you’re sad,” Shakchunni told her, holding the wife’s face between her hands. “Hide your tears, and smile as they expect you to. You must survive, my child. Promise me you will survive.” The wife hesitated, her bare feet digging into the soft soil, her eyes filled with a quiet fury. “If I don’t fight back,” the wife said, her voice steady despite the tears threatening to spill, “this will continue. For me, for others like me.”
Shakchunni turned to her, her face unreadable in the dim light.
“No,” Shakchunni finally said, her tone soft but firm. “Not everyone is a fighter. And it is not always worth it to fight.” She reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind the wife’s ear, her touch tender but heavy with resignation. “You’re tired. They will break you before you even make a crack in their world.”
The wife pulled back, her frustration bubbling to the surface. “So what then? I go back, smile as they want me to, and pretend I am happy? Just like you said?”
Shakchunni looked away, and said “Yes,” after a long pause. “That is how you survive. That is how I survived. It’s all I know to teach you.”
“But what’s the point of surviving if nothing changes?”
Shakchunni didn’t answer. Instead, she turned and began to fade into the shadows of the forest, leaving the wife standing alone on the threshold between freedom and captivity.
“Smile,” Shakchunni’s voice echoed faintly. “Never let them see you cry.”
The wife wiped her tears and forced her lips into a trembling smile as she walked back toward the house, the firelight of the tantrik’s ritual still burning in the distance. Behind her, the forest grew quiet once more, Shakchunni retreating to her solitude, carrying the weight of her silence, buried under centuries of learned helplessness.
Mashaekh Hassan is a Graduate Teaching Assistant, Centre for Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Florida Atlantic University.
