Chapter 7: Kneeling Before Truth
The small acts of atonement I performed as Uma brought no true peace. Every envelope of bribe money slipped under a door, every quiet favor for a ruined family, only sharpened the blade of guilt twisting in my belly. The wound I had inflicted on Parvati and her father still festered — raw, bleeding, unforgiven. Pandit Ramesh Rao remained trapped in his coma in Hyderabad, and until he woke, I could not face her. Each day the shame grew heavier, pressing on my new breasts like an unseen weight.
I walked to the Durga temple more often now, barefoot even when the Activa stood waiting. One gray afternoon, with rain heavy in the clouds but refusing to fall, I slipped into a quiet corner of the courtyard. My maroon cotton saree pooled around my folded knees.My shoulders began to shake uncontrollably.
An elderly widow in a plain white saree approached slowly and sat beside me.
“Child, the Goddess hears even the silent screams,” she murmured. “But tears alone are not enough. Perform the Devi Vratam. Twenty-eight days. Cold bath before dawn. Barefoot to the temple every day. One meal after sunset. Sleep on the bare floor. Offer everything you have. Only then does Devi consider true repentance.”
I nodded, wiping my face with the back of my trembling hand, and folded my palms in supplication.
I began the very next morning.
Dawn after dawn, I gasped under icy well water. My bare feet grew tender and dusty from the walk to the temple. Hunger clawed at my insides by midday. Nights on the hard floor left dark bruises on my widened hips and soft shoulders. Yet I continued — draping my saree with increasing devotion, offering flowers and prayers with a bowed head.
On the twenty-eighth morning, the air itself felt electric.
After the cold bath I draped a simple maroon saree with steadier hands, smoothing the folds over my hips and adjusting the pallu across my full breasts. My bare feet carried me to the temple with quiet purpose.
Voices drifted from the priest’s quarters. My heart hammered against my ribs as I approached the threshold.
Pandit Ramesh Rao sat upright in a wooden chair, frail but awake. Parvati knelt beside him, gently adjusting a shawl around his thin shoulders.
I froze and said " I am Vijay…?”
Parvati turned sharply. Her gaze locked onto mine.
A raw, animal sound tore from my throat — half sob, half broken growl. I dropped to my knees on the stone floor, forehead slamming against the ground. My pallu slipped from my shoulder, exposing the deep curve of my blouse but I didn’t care. My hands trembled as I pressed them together in front of my chest.
“I am Uma now,” I whispered, voice cracking. Tears spilled hot onto the stone. “What I did to you… to both of you… I destroyed everything I touched. I lied to you, Parvati. I manipulated you with false hope. I took you on that table like an animal while my phone recorded every sound you made. I showed that video to your father and laughed. I was worse than any demon this temple has ever known. I deserve every bit of this, Pandit ji. The softness, the shame… all of it. Hell, some days I even catch myself liking it, and that scares me more than anything.”
My shoulders shook with deep, ugly sobs. I rocked forward, pressing my forehead harder into the stone until it hurt.
“Please… expose me. Drag me through the village by my hair. Stone me. Kill me if you want. I beg you. I beg both of you. Let me make even a fraction of it right. I have nothing left but this cursed, soft, aching body and the shame that now lives inside it.”
The silence that followed was crushing.
Parvati’s footsteps approached. Her hand rested gently on the back of my head, warm and unsteady. Her fingers threaded through my long hair.
“Get up, Uma.”
I rose slowly on shaking knees, wiping my eyes with trembling fingers before smoothing my saree drape into place with humiliated modesty. My gaze fixed on the floor. The priest watched in silence.
The confession poured out like poison I could no longer contain — every bribe, every threat, every family I had shattered, the precise lies I had whispered to Parvati that night in the bungalow. I spoke with my head bowed, hands clasped tightly in my lap, occasionally touching the edge of my saree as if it could anchor me.
When I finally fell silent, Parvati studied me for a long, painful moment. Then her voice came, quiet and raw.
“I’m pregnant… almost three months now.”
My stomach dropped. Another life I forced into this world. Vijay strikes again, even from inside this soft body. I wanted to scream at my old self until my throat bled.
The words hit me like a lathi to the stomach. My breath caught in a strangled sob.
“I… I did that to you too,” I whispered, voice hoarse. “I tricked you. I beg your forgiveness. For the violence. For this innocent life growing inside you. For everything. I don’t even deserve to speak your name.”
Tears streamed down my face.
Parvati stepped closer. She knelt before me, cupped my wet cheek with surprising tenderness, and brushed a tear away with her thumb. Her other hand rested lightly on her still-subtle belly.
“You destroyed me that night, Vijay,” she said, deliberately using my old name like a blade. “I believed your lies. And then you showed him that video…”
She swallowed hard.
“But here you are. Not as that monster. As Uma. Broken. Honest. Carrying this body like both punishment and penance. I’ve watched you these past weeks — helping the temple women, sitting with the widows, carrying the guilt that eats you alive.”
She leaned forward until our foreheads touched. Her breath mingled with mine, warm and shaky.
“This child is innocent. And somehow, through all this horror, Maa Durga has brought us here.”
I looked up at her with desperate, tear-filled eyes.
“I don’t expect your love. I don’t expect forgiveness. Just… let me serve you. Let me protect you and the child. Let me spend every remaining day of this life trying to balance the scales, even if I never can.”
Parvati was quiet for a long time.
“I won’t lie,” she whispered against my lips. “The pain is still here. It will take years. But I see you, Uma. I think… I can live with the woman you are becoming.”
Parvati’s voice cracked. “It terrifies me, Uma. Part of me still sees Vijay when I close my eyes. But then I watch you sweeping the courtyard, or kneeling in the temple… and I feel something new. Something real. Don’t you dare stop fighting for us.”
She placed her hand over her belly again, protective and soft.
“This child deserves two mothers who choose each other despite everything.”
Later that evening, after the priest had gone to rest, Parvati led me to a quiet corner of the temple courtyard. The oil lamps flickered softly. She pulled me down beside her on the stone floor.
“I’m scared, Uma,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “Every time I look at you, I see both the man who broke me and the woman trying to heal what he destroyed. Some days I want to push you away. Other days I want to hold you so tightly that the past disappears.”
I bowed my head, tears falling onto my lap. “I will spend every day earning that choice, Parvati. Even if it takes a lifetime.”
She didn’t kiss me with passion. Instead she simply rested her forehead against mine, both of us breathing together under the watchful eyes of Maa Durga.
She helped me to my feet, carefully adjusting my disheveled saree with gentle hands.
“Come,” she said softly. “Let us sit with Baba. Together.”
As we walked back toward the priest’s quarters, Parvati’s hand stayed warm on my lower back, guiding me. For the first time since the curse began, I didn’t feel completely alone in my shame. A fragile thread of hope — thin, delicate, but real — had begun to form between us.
Back in the present, eight years later, I traced small soothing circles on Parvati’s wrist, then tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“You were so beautifully broken that day,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to my temple. “Kneeling there in your saree, sobbing like the world had ended.”
I nestled closer, resting my head against her shoulder with a soft sigh. “It felt like it had. I’m still learning how to carry it all… but I’m yours. Completely.”
The story continued softly into the quiet night.
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