(Content Warning: Mention of Domestic abuse and violence)

Darling daughter, eye of my eye…I am going to tell you a story. This story has been told and retold, droned by hearths and hummed by moonlit windows in voices ageing as they spoke. They all told it differently, but trust me, they all told the same story. And now I am telling it to you. Fold it under your warm brown skin. Remember it in your stark white bones.

Come lie on my lap, and look at this warm, brown rain. The same brown rain howled with the winds when I caught my flight to this foreign land. I was a young, little thing, drenched with sweat and rain in an oversized coat. In the corner of my eye, I caught the glint of my mother’s nose-pin, this one here, its single diamond frosted white and set in gold - the only inheritance I was willing to carry. That cloistered metal tube would take me, crammed in seat 14A, folded, knees tucked, and neck hurting, where I could study what I liked, pursue the man I loved and live the life I wanted. Somewhere I could escape my destiny.

Yet I was living a story centuries old. A story of brown space, time and destinies I thought I was leaving behind, unaware that it flowed through the brown in my blood.

Unaware that over half a century before, a similar brown rain bore witness when your great-grand aunt shrank, drenched and breathless from running, into a yellow telephone booth. The turmeric from her thaali* melted into her fair skin, running yellow down her chest. She dialled her parents’ home, her cheeks darkening in shame, crying into the receiver. Would they please, please take her out of there? She knew her broken body couldn’t survive more beating. At 21, she had already realised the size of her pride was the size of her womb. After months of marriage, her womb lay barren. Her husband beat her for it. First a yank of her curly, black hair. Then, as her stomach continued to lie flat against her curving hips, the large house regularly stilled to her screams. His family quietly ignored it. She was his wife, after all, and they hadn’t seen any signs of an heir. One day, he pushed her into the cowshed, beat her with a belt, where she slept in the smell of cloying dung. She awoke to crushing rain, her back and stomach streaked purple. Then, as if possessed, she made a run for it. The space around her peeled away, shrinking like cardboard as she ran, till it reduced to a yellow phone booth. That cloistered booth would lead her, folded, knees tucked, and womb hurting, to somewhere she could escape her destiny.

My mother, too - who brought me up to treat love like poison spittle from a snake - had grappled with her destiny in a similar brown rainstorm. At 24, she stood on the steps of an old temple, a bride, watching her beloved walking in with his family under colourful umbrellas. In her six yards of yellow silk, she’d wanted to wear her mother’s (and her grandmother’s) garnet necklace and sacred navratna** bangles. But there she stood in only a slim gold necklace and silver anklets, none of her kin standing witness to her union. She had run from her home, rich and sturdily walled with traditions that hadn’t allowed their blood to mingle with that of another caste. Run until her space shrank to the moss-clad walls of a stone-grey temple crowded with a family of strangers and one beloved. That cloistered sanctum would take her, folded, knees tucked, and heart hurting, somewhere she could escape her destiny.

Every time, in every story, the women who came before you found their space folding in on them like wet cardboard, draping the weight of centuries on their shoulders. We all thought we were leaving it behind, not realising it flowed within us.

So when you find your space constricting your throat, remember this well: there is no shame in running, or in resistance. It is an act worth its pain.

And in your small acts, you heal and help heal. Once, I saw my grandmother grinning like a little girl when I wore heels to visit her. I learned later that the first time she wore a pair of heels, her father snatched them from her feet, sawed the heels off and threw them at her. Forty years later, her hurt healed when her granddaughter wore them freely.

The labour of living free lessens with every generation. I hope this running away ends with me. But I will always want you to remember this story, for my darling, eye of my eye, you have brown in your blood.

*Sacred turmeric thread tied by the groom on the bride during the wedding, signifying marital union
** Navratna refers to a sacred combination of nine precious gemstones- ruby, pearl, red coral, emerald, yellow sapphire, diamond, blue sapphire, hessonite, and cat's eye.