Independence Day fiction: Stories of common men who participated in Gandhi’s satyagraha for freedom
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Kinjal Ben stood up on her toes to look at herself closely for the first time in weeks in the forsaken oval mirror on the wall. She dipped her middle finger in her little sindoor pot and planted a big circular bindi in the middle of her broad forehead. Suddenly, her face shone, radiated by the little circular mirrors of the embroidery around her outfit’s neckline, and her brown eyes, lined with thick kajal, sparkled. Smiling at herself, she picked up her ornate silver hairpin and secured it among her tight braids. Nobody would notice it under the odhni covering her head, but she was sure that even a glimpse of it would tickle her husband. After all, Jignesh had given her this gift on their wedding night.
Jignesh was being released after a sentence of five months in prison for marching against the government’s practice of land grabbing and inflated agricultural taxes. Her father-in-law Radhey Shyam Parekh, Sasu Ma, Radha Rani, Bade Kakaji and other menfolk from their hamlet had left before dawn for the neighbouring Bardoli to escort him home with the sound of trumpets and great fanfare.