Amongst the billions of women living in her country, she was one of them. Sweet, dressed in a simple salwar stitched with the most ordinary material. She played with her friends and stood there smiling with her glossy eyes that had so much of innocence in them. Little did she know that her father was upset and angry when he came to know his wife gave birth to a girl.In a straw hut she lived with her parents a younger brother and elder sister. Instead of sending her to school she was made to help her mother with household chores and take care of her younger brother while her mother and sister would work as a domestic maid and come home only till late evening. While her father would sit to gamble the entire day, he would come home drunk and often it led to a fight between him and her tired mother and would often land up beating and abusing them. After a few years she was made to work with her mother as her eldest sister was married off at the age of 13 to a man who was more than twice her age, as he helped them financially. Her brother was sent to school and was given the best treatment as he was supposed to be the one who would continue their family generation and earn for the family & make them rich one day. So,  he was allowed to speak rudely to his sisters and whatever he demanded was given to him. This girl on the other hand was now 15 and when a man came to ask her hand in marriage, she was given away. No doubt he had a good job and seemed to be a nice man.But the one day proposal match was  too less to find out about the person he was inside. So when she was married she was harassed for dowry by her in laws and her husband too, who hit her to take out his frustrations. Her life was no less than a jailed criminal behind bars.For no fault of hers. All she knew was that she was hurt from inside and yet always blamed herself thinking she must have done something wrong to upset others. Little did she know the life she was living was not the life she deserved. Because she was living the life that millions of women in her country are leading everyday of their lives so she felt it was a way of life. Sad to know that her father died due to excessive drinking and her brother got married to a girl from the city and sent his love in the form of money to his old, ill- health mother, to live by herself alone. For no fault of hers she lived a life she herself dint expect, afterall she did the best she could do for her son. To make things worse her son even though as he lived in a city, he carried on the same culture of being male dominated and treated his wife just like his father treated his wife because he was brought up that way,  a fault that was not his own too. The little girl who smiled with glossy eyes, her children, looked and smiled with the same innocence, as they had no idea how their future would be, for no fault of theirs. 

-Then who's fault was it anyway?

Cold was the morning and so was her heart. She sat on a rickety stool and gazed outside the window through the tiny holes of the laced curtain. It took her back to the days when she saw her kids playing on the lawn, laughing and running about and how she would call out to them from the window to have lunch. The day she saw her son bring in their new car and the memory of seeing her son smiling and so happy, reflected on her face too. Not forgetting the day when she bid goodbye to her husband who went to the ship and never returned for their anniversary.  Also the moment when she first saw her daughter walking in with her boyfriend and the same path she walked away after she was married. The wind blew, scattering dried leaves all over the lawn that was once green. In a flash, here she was, old, feeling like just till yesterday she was the same pretty young girl who had all the energy in her to do what she wanted. She knew everything had changed and soon she would be praised for the person she was as she would be known as the lady who is no more. Silence were the words, deep were the thoughts as she lived one day at a time.