Years had passed, and I had not returned to the dense forests of the Northeast where my tribal wife, Sukira, lived. A year after I returned from the surveying camp, I got a job at a power plant company. Two years later, I had a love marriage with one of my engineering classmates, and we settled in Gurgaon. Life was going well, but memories of Sukira, my marriage to her, and her sacrifice for my sake would occasionally haunt me. However, my life had become too busy to pause and reflect.
A year after my marriage, I was transferred from the design division to a site-based role. The company was launching a new hydro-power project in the Northeast, in the same town where I had gone for my college surveying camp. I moved to the town of Mindanao over the weekend. I stayed at a company guesthouse, and the windows facing east opened to the green forests. My marriage to Sukira, the night spent with her, and my escape all became as fresh as morning dew. I would often open the window after returning to the guesthouse and stare at the vast stretch of jungle for hours, uninterrupted, wondering how Sukira was doing and what had happened to her after I escaped. These thoughts were both troubling and bewildering. I had betrayed her.
My five-month posting was coming to an end, and I would soon return to the crowded streets of Gurgaon. I was given a week’s holiday for the transfer, but something stopped me from booking a ticket right away. It was Sukira, calling me once again into the forests from which I had escaped.
I asked about the village near the agricultural university campus and how to get there, and then I took a bus to the campus. I couldn’t enter the village directly—if any of the tribespeople recognized me, it would be the last day of my life.
I started asking about Sukira in the market near her village. By chance, I met a school teacher who was going to a newly opened school in Sukira‘s village to teach children. To my delight, he knew about Sukira. I didn’t tell him about my marriage to her. He narrated the hard times she had gone through after marrying an outsider whom she had helped escape the day after their wedding. As a punishment, she had been ostracized by the tribe and was living alone in the same hut where we had spent our wedding night, with Sukira in my arms.
A feeling of guilt and remorse engulfed me. My wife and daughter had been living all alone, with no one to care for them. I felt an overwhelming urge to see Sukira and my daughter. It was morning, and I knew where Sukira would go to bathe—after all, her bathing spot was the reason for our forced marriage by the tribal King.
I rushed to the spot, my eyes desperately searching for Sukira. I reached the waterfall and hid behind the vegetation. After an hour’s wait, I saw Sukira appear, as beautiful and fresh as she ever was, with her daughter holding her hand and walking by her side.
I wanted to rush out and hug them both. I wanted to take Sukira and my daughter with me, but I was reminded of my wife back in Gurgaon. It was impossible.
When they reached the waterfall, it started to rain. I couldn’t muster the courage to meet Sukira. What would I even say to her? How would I face my daughter? I just watched them play in the waterfall, my eyes desperate to capture the image forever, my heart crying out in helplessness. I took a few photos with my camera. Half an hour later, they both walked out of the water and faded from my sight. I stood in the rain, tears rolling down my cheeks.
I made a promise to myself to take care of Sukira and my daughter, to take them back home one day. I didn’t know how, but I couldn’t leave them there forever. After all, Sukira was my first love, my first wife, and the mother of my first child.
The next day, I returned to the concrete colonies of Gurgaon, far from Sukira in the pristine jungles of the Northeast, with a promise once again to bring her home.
