Diya

My father faced me the morning after the festival. He looked at me with contempt, then turned to my mother. ‘See your daughter. This is what you taught her? To lie to her parents. To run around with boys.’

My mother said nothing. But I did. ‘Don’t blame her,’ I said. ‘Whatever I did, I did myself.’

My mother’s eyes widened. I had never talked back to him. She looked at me in fear.

He slapped me hard. ‘You children of today,’ said my father. ‘You sing one song with a boy, and you imagine that you are in love with him.’

‘I do love him,’ I said. He slapped me again, so hard that my lip split and blood began to fill my mouth.

‘Enough!’ said my father. ‘I don’t want to hear that word from your mouth. You go near him again in college, and I will make sure you leave your studies and get married within a month.’

I said nothing. There was no point. I didn’t want Aman to get hurt again. My mother pleaded with me with her eyes to be quiet. Afterwards, she washed my cut lip and told me to forget Aman.

‘Please,’ she begged. ‘You know what he’s like. You can’t go against him. He would never allow it.’

‘Maybe you can live your whole life without love,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

When Aman came back to college, he had a limp. His right eye was swollen shut. All his friends looked at me strangely. I could see they blamed me. But he didn’t.

We first saw each other in the canteen. Aman smiled through swollen lips and began to limp towards me. I shook my head. On either side of me sat two men. My father had sent them to guard me. The principal had thrown a fit, but my father was not a man to be denied.

I shook my head. I pleaded with my eyes. I could not have borne to see him beaten up again. Aman understood. He stood in front of me for a long, long moment. On either side of me, the men tensed. Then he turned and limped back to a bench on the other side of the room.

He got a cup of coffee. I did the same. Then he sat across the room and drank it. He locked eyes with me and never broke the gaze. For every sip he took, I took a sip too. We were in a crowded canteen. But we could have been entirely alone, sharing every breath. There was pin-drop silence. Everyone was watching us.

Then the smiles began. Right across that canteen there were smiles as we drank our coffee together, as close as it is possible for two people to be. People smiled and we drank our coffee, matching each other sip for sip. Each sip a declaration of love.

I understood that Aman was right. Victory doesn’t come from violence or strength. Victory can be as simple as a cup of coffee. A smile across a room. Freedom is in the small things. And no one can take those from you.