That day her facial expressions were different. She had revealed her whole mind on her little face. It gave me the feelings of a captive who had been incarcerated and kept for the service of her in-laws.

She came from an average middle class family with a few siblings; the eldest one with a lot of love from parents and grandparents. She had the freedom to play or read, work or sleep, shout, cry, laugh. She was free and no one was there to stop or check her. Yes, people were there to assist her in all her endeavors. Those were her golden days but time changed and for her time changed a little more. She had grown young and finished her studies. Now it was the right time for her marriage. Parents were eager to find a suitable groom who could be financially well settled to meet her economic needs. They got a groom who was semi settled. Finally she was married and came to her in-laws.

Now the life changed dramatically for her. A few weeks passed happily but after that she started feeling the heat of in-laws house. Once a princess was now degraded to derogatory jobs and remarks. She felt the pain but unable to react. She was alone or better say lonely in the jungle of relations who were more than ferocious tigers and tigresses, wolves, foxes, vultures who were ready to pierce and tear her physically, mentally, morally and economically. She was caged, cabined, cribbed and confined. She had lost her independence. This was all garbed in a golden relationship `marriage’.

She was the first to wake up in the morning to serve bed tea to her in-laws and last to sleep after checking all doors and windows locked. She had forgotten her own self, her own personality, desires, needs, ambitions everything. She had completely submerged herself in her new role. It was impossible to trace the reminiscence of that princess who had once been in her castle. Now that castle had been a forbidden one where she was allowed to go rarely.

She had become unvoiced and unassuming and always watchful to the commands of the master. That was all in the garb of marriage. She sometimes felt that she had been gifted to her in-laws in a golden wrap. She was a sex machine to her husband, cook, cleaner, nurse, washerwoman and chattering box to her in-laws. She was a panacea to all maladies for her in-laws. She sometimes felt her inability to pay back her indebtedness to those who had made her princess. She was loyal to those to whom she was gifted. Now she had realized that different people take their gifts in different spirits: some take it with gratitude but most of them take it as a prized possession; a captive who could do everything for their masters.