Peace was back in Nirgala's house after her brother Abhi's housewarming function. Or rather, the noise of her ruthlessly gossiping relatives had quieted down gradually as they left after the party was done.

But the damage of the whole ordeal with their visiting relatives’ words was done beyond repair.

Nirgala’s mother had spent the days in their company hearing snark comments on Nirgala’s single status, criticism of her seemingly straightforward attitude, snide remarks on how she is “too focused on herself”, satires on how she is retaining her youthful look by refraining from bearing children, and a lot more speculative dialogues on why she wasn’t getting married.

Everyone commonly agreed on one point - that Nirgala’s family had lost their control on her after the death of her father, that her mother Sarala and brother Abhi had let her loose and are sitting back doing nothing for her so as to not take any responsibility. Few of the relatives whispered amongst themselves that Sarala and Abhi could benefit a lot if Nirgala stayed unmarried - all her assets and money would be theirs and eventually be given to Abhi’s kids.

There were two of the worst discussions that had happened in course of the entire ordeal. One was an aunt remarking to Sarala’s face that maybe there was something wrong with Nirgala’s health which was stopping her from getting married and having kids, and the entire family’s hiding it.

The second was that Nirgala had been cursed with a bad horoscope - the first time she got engaged, her father passed away in an untimely fashion. And ever since then every time Nirgala’s family tried to get her married away, some or the other untoward event had occurred.

Nirgala was a bad jinx, a cursed girl. 

Sarala had tried her best to negate all the absurd statements and clarify that nothing was wrong with Nirgala, that her decision to stay single was based on her open minded, feminist ideology that a woman doesn’t need to get married just for the sake of it. That she was open to marriage only if she met a man who matched up to her high standards. Nirgala was, after all, a very high achieving woman and wouldn’t settle for a mediocre man.

Sarala’s attempts of speaking for her daughter were met with further criticism, their relatives taunting her that she spoiled her daughter way too much by letting her act on her own.

Nirgala had watched everything unfold in the sidelines and decided to not pay any attention to those local hate-mongers. She knew they lacked basic understanding of respecting your host, refraining from making people around them uncomfortable, didn’t have even a teeny tiny bit of empathy, and were too stupid to even comprehend anything she said to explain herself.

But as she watched Sarala visibly flinch at some of their relatives’ words and the try to hide the look of disdain on her face with a pretence of agreeing with their opinions with a forced fake smile, Nirgala knew that she would have to have a very tough conversation with her mother after the housewarming function.

She was right about that. A day after everyone left and Abhi’s house quieted down, Sarala locked herself up in her room, refusing to come out for meals, saying, “I don’t have an appetite. The things I have heard these past couple of days has filled me up to the brim. Having a meal is not going to fix that.”

Nirgala knew the drill. She avoided showing her face to her mother, lest it triggers her, and asked Abhi and Siri to talk her out of her anger and disappointment with Mitra. When a whole day passed with Sarala not even sparing a word to anyone or letting a grain of food into her mouth, Nirgala couldn’t stay still.

“Could you please tell her to ignore the stupidity of others?” she urged Abhi. “She can’t sulk like this because our relatives lack manners and common sense. They are known idiots and get fun out of inflicting pain on others. This is not something new - we know they tear other people apart just to make themselves feel better. Are we supposed to play to their tunes?”

Sarala heard Nirgala’s words from her room and broke her silence. She shouted angrily so her children in the living room could hear her, “Yeah, they are all idiots. But they are the ones who speak about us everywhere, create the impression people around us hold about us. What do you know about the damage these gossips do to us? People don’t care about the truth or about your feelings. All they care is whether you are similar to them or not. The minute you stand out and behave differently, you marked as the target to be taken down.”

Nirgala took a deep breath, rose from the couch in the living room where she had been sitting and talking to Abhi and Siri, and walked over to Sarala’s room.

Standing in the doorway, she asked, “Mom, do you think they are correct?”

“No,” Sarala turned her gaze away from her daughter.

“Do you support them? Or did they ever support us in any of our hardships, either in word or in action?” Nirgala asked, folding her arms.

“No, I don’t support them. But all these years when you were away in Germany, they did try to maintain their relationship with us. They are our people too. So you can’t just ignore everyone. We live in a society, not in seclusion,” Sarala retorted.

“As if I don’t know that,” Nirgala snorted. “Mom, no matter how close someone is to us, there is always a line that they shouldn’t cross towards us, just as how we never cross a line with them.”

“They were saying their opinions; you can’t just tell them to shut up.”

“Well, guess what mom, I can,” Nirgala stood ramrod straight as she stared defiantly at her mother and vented. “You know what, mom, I am more angry with you than those senseless relatives of us. These past few days when I saw you nodding your head and bearing their nonsensical chatter about me, I waited to see if you would defend your daughter. But no, you didn’t. The feeble reasons you gave in my favour just added fuel to their conversation. If I was in your place… No scratch that, no matter in which situation I was, if someone tried to criticize and gossip about you or Abhi or Siri, I would have flatly told them to shut up and get lost.”

Abhi and Siri looked at each other - they knew Nirgala would have really done that.

She was very understanding and protective of the people she loved.