Facades of Love 

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Eleven year old.
I see my mother cry for the first time. She sits on the porch, twisting and tugging at the loose end of her sari, hiding a hint of purple on her wrist. Kohl immaculately lines her eyes. cherry red on her lips.

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"What's wrong, ma?"

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"All okay!" she says with a smile plastered on her face.
I am thirty eight now, and as my daughter awaits the response to the question I asked my mother twenty seven years ago, I know what that smile meant – "I am okay, hon. Trust me, I am. Your father hit me for the first time last night. I fell to the ground and broke my glass bangles. See this scar? You now know the story behind it. I bawled my eyes out last night. But I made sure I muffled my wails. There is a hollow beneath my eyes. You don't see it. It's a woman's job to carry the marks of a man's sins but they're not for the world to see. but i am okay, hon. Marriages are built on compromises and pain. The onus is on us women if we don't put a facade on them."