Sati System; Modified!

It was a fine sunny day. The sun was up in the sky and was shining brilliantly. The air around was hot and calm. Images of flames could be seen at distant. After taking a lunch break, workers had resumed breaking the big loafs of soil into fine sediments.

Santo Bai was busy working with her shovel. She was tall and well built woman in her early thirties. Every time she hit the loaves with her shovel, her muscles got tighter and her big breasts bumped first up and then down. She had a broad figure and the muscles had perfectly filled her broad bones and she looked like a lady belonging to the family of a king. It was heard that her mother was a maid in the king’s palace and the king was in love with her. And Santo was the fruit of their love that ended after her mother got pregnant with a baby. She was thrown out of the palace and the state. Since then the maid lived in other village and joined to a group of lady workers but soon she died just after popping Santo out of her womb. She was blessed with the physical features of the great king and was grown up by the other neighboring ladies and was taught farming. She was married to a man of thirty five when she was eleven. She had to join to the fields the day she came to her man’s house.

When she got her full youthfulness, her man was becoming older. Young boys and men would look into her eyes and would ask her to run away with them. She enjoyed the attention she was getting from the sepoys of the king but never let anybody touch her. However she was burning with her desires to make love with someone of her age group but the fear of society inside her never allowed her to do so.

                                                                 ***

Something wrong was just said into her ears by her co-worker. She looked into her the co worker’s eyes, turned her face and threw her shovel away. She pulled the front boarder of her saree, tucked it on her waist and began running towards the peepul tree which was the only tree in acres of fertile land. She paused for seconds, looked at the bottom of the tree where her lunch box and other belongings were kept and resumed running.

When she reached near her house, she found the front verandah occupied by a huge crowd of men. Her heartbeat rose up. Her body shook with fear. She still had some hope and she looked up into the sky and prayed to god, ‘God, please don’t turn my fear into reality’, and she moved on, slicing the crowd. When she crossed the group of men and reached to the other end, she found the ladies sitting surrounding her husband, who was lying on the ground with his eyes closed and mouth opened. 

As soon as the ladies saw Santo Bai, they jumped up and ran to her, crying strangely. She fell on her husband’s feet and started weeping. The ladies wept with her, hugging each other. They cursed Gods together. They broke her bangles. An old lady wiped the vermilion off her forehead. New ladies from neighboring kept on joining the scene one by one and wept and they wept in such a manner that looked as if they were singing some folk songs. She was becoming unconscious. Her body was falling freely. Some ladies caught her and made her sit. As soon as Bai got to sit, she started scratching her face, pulling her hair and abused everybody.

‘She has become mad in pain of losing her husband.’ People thought.

Suddenly, she became quiet and wept quietly. All of a sudden, she pushed the ladies away who were sitting holding her and started slapping her forehead then she beat on her chest and abused god as if the god had come down to earth to kill her husband. She pulled her hair and hugged her husband’s dead body and cried, saying, ‘how can you die so early?’ However, she never loved her husband when he was alive. There was a huge gap between their ages and so they never understood each other.

She crouched and sat next to her husband’s body and welled liked a small kid. Tears flushed down her cheeks. Men stood around and watched the scene quietly. They looked at each other and talked with their eyes. Some of them were getting the preparations done for the funeral. Some were sent to meet the men who could do preparations for burning the body. Some were sent to call the pundits who could do the final rituals.

Four hours had passed. The lady had lost all her energy. She looked lifeless. She was half sitting and half lying next to the dead body which was now placed on a pyre that was made up of dry bamboos in the form of small ladder, suiting perfectly fit with the height of the dead body and was filled with dry clean grass. The body was decorated with new piece of cloth printed with the word ‘Ram’ everywhere and some flower designs. Scented sticks burned before the body’s feet and head. The head pundit along with her four disciples arrived on the site to do the rituals for the final goodbye to the dead body.

                                                               ***

The dusk had fallen down. Some men had left to finish their cattle work. It was turning dark. The lady was brought inside the house and was undressed by the other ladies. They bathed her with new soaps and washed her hair with red mud. She was then worn by wedding saree and new undergarments. Vermilion was rubbed all around on her forehead and front part of hair. Kohl was applied around her eyes. Her body was loaded with all the jewelries that she had been gifted at the time of her wedding.

She looked perfectly like a new bride. The ladies called for the head pundit. He came in and was marched to the Santo. She was sitting in the middle of the courtyard and a 4X4 sq mm area around her was covered with yellow dhoti that made the lady invisible form outside world. The pundit went inside the covering area. A small kerosene lamp was flickering in the middle of the area covered with the dhoti. The lady was sitting like a bride to be married before the lamp. Pundit kept his elements on the ground and crouched to sit on his asan. The other ladies sat at some distance and sang songs. This was the final ritual that the lady had to go before getting burned with her husband’s dead body.

Pundit took little water in his hand and threw some drops on the ladies. He slowly opened his holy book and began chanting mantras. The other ladies picked up a great pace of singing and their voice rose up higher. Santo Bai dropped the part of her wedding saree down her shoulders and stretched her chest outside that made the part of saree fall down. Pundit continued chanting his mantras. She unhooked the topmost button of her blouse. Pundit’s chanting speed got distracted. His eyes stared at her breasts. He stared on her with more intense and chanted mantras with less focus. The ladies continued the songs. Santo unhooked the third and last button. Pundit stopped chanting and stared around. She smiled and blew the flame of kerosene lamp with full might. It died. Pundit resumed chanting mantras in the darkness. The lady jumped and reached to the pundit and caressed him with her soft body and kissed him on his ear.

‘Fuck off you unholy woman. I’ll curse you.’

She said nothing and continued seducing him.

‘What do you want?’

‘Don’t let me die. I want to live.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

‘It’s impossible now. You’ll have to burn yourself with your husband.’

‘Help me escaping from this village. You can find me easily and can fuck me every day.’

The ladies stopped singing outside after they discovered the light had died inside the area. One of them took the matchbox and came near the dhoti and asked Santo Bai to show the lamp to her.

Santo hooked her buttons and composed herself quickly and followed the lady’s request. The lamp was lit and the mantras continued for some more time. Without focus this time!

After some time, the pyre was lifted up by four men on their shoulders and was marched outside, chanting, ‘Ram naam satya hai.’ The crowd trailed behind them with lamp and other belonging. The head pundit was walking with his disciples ahead of the crowd. They were discussing something. Santo was walking with the ladies who kept singing songs.

                                                              *** 

They arrived on the bank of holy river Ganges. The patromax was lit and the pyre was kept on a heap of dry woods and sandal sticks were put around it. A bucket of ghee was emptied on the dead body. And the other was opened for the lady. The other rituals were done by the pundits. People listened to them and waited for the final words.

‘Listen, everybody.’ Pundit began, clearing his throat. He continued, ‘this lady has some faults in her stars. Before putting her on the pyre, she is needed to take 11 holy deeps into the river. And she will have to walk into the water alone.’

People followed the holy man’s order and requested Santo to do so.

Santo knew there was something for her but she had no clue what it was. She had successfully seduced the pundit and she knew the power of seduction. She walked slowly and entered into the water. The water was cold and calm. Each slap of her feet on water could be heard clearly. The water level rises up from her ankle to her knee and it travelled her body to reach to her neck. She stood and looked behind. She turned her head back to the river and blocked her nostrils with her fingers and dipped her head into water.

Someone was already there inside water!

Note: The story is a complete work of fiction and there is no resemblance of it with anybody and any place.