Uma, Usha, Urmila - Chapter 02

Usha

I found this box by luck. But I think it was left for me. My name is Usha Saxena. My husband, Lokesh, is a soldier in the Indian Army. We were married when I was nine years old, and I have spent many years alone while my husband has fought for our country. Before azaadi – freedom – he spent some years in prison for uprising against the British. But since we became free, he has been stationed in Kashmir. I fear he will never return, for it is a battle never to be won. When I was a child, my family traveled to Kashmir on vacation. Now, it is no longer safe.

My mother died when I was nine years old. She died of cancer after suffering for two years, and left behind my father, my three sisters, and me. Lokesh lived next door to me, with his mother, father, and older brother Ramesh. His mother, Smita Aunty, always welcomed us into her home and took care of us. When she saw my mother was close to death, she approached my father. The day before she died, my mother saw my sister Seema and I marry the sons of her best friend. She raised us as daughters, sending us to school and taking care of us so that my father could have an easier time having only to deal with two daughters.

I cannot believe she is gone. And I was the only one here when she died. So now, at twenty-five, I have lost two mothers. But when she died, she left me this box, on the condition that I would translate its contents from Sanskrit and add my own story to it. So this is what I have done, for who am I to deny a woman’s dying wish, especially a woman who raised me as a daughter.