Think twice and act wisely

A girl in love asked her boyfriend.
Girl: Tell me. Who do you love most in this world?
Boy: You, of course!
Girl: In your heart, what am I to you?

The boy thought for a moment and looked intently in her eyes and said, "You are my rib. It was said that God saw that Adam was lonely, during his sleep, God took one of Adam's rib and created Eve. Every man has been searching for his missing rib, only when you find the woman of your life, you'll no longer feel the lingering ache in your heart."

After their wedding, the couple had a sweet and happy life for a while.


However, the youthful couple began to drift apart due to the busy schedule of life and the never-ending worries of daily problems, their life became mundane.

All the challenges posed by the harsh realities of life began to gnaw away their dreams and love for each other. The couple began to have more quarrels and each quarrel became more heated.

One day, after the quarrel, the girl ran out of the house. At the opposite side of the road, she shouted, "You don't love me!"

The boy hated her childishness and out of impulse, retorted, "Maybe, it was a mistake for us to be together! You were never my missing rib!"

Suddenly, she turned quiet and stood there for a long while. He regretted what he said but words spoken are like thrown away water, you can never take it back. With tears, she went home to pack her things and was determined in breaking-up.

Before she left the house, "If I'm really not your missing rib, please let me go." She continued, "It is less painful this way. Let us go on our separate ways and search for our own partners."

Five years went by...

He never remarried but he had tried to find out about her life indirectly. She had left the country and back. She had married a foreigner and divorced. He felt anguished that she never waited for him.

In the dark and lonely night, he lit his cigarette and felt the lingering ache in his heart. He couldn't bring himself to admit that he was missing her.

One day, they finally met. At the airport, a place where there were many reUNI0Ns and good byes. He was going away on a business trip. She was standing there alone, with just the security door separating them. She smiled at him gently.

Boy: How are you?

Girl: I'm fine. How about you? Have you found your missing rib?

Boy: No.

Girl: I'll be flying to New York in the next flight.

Boy: I'll be back in 2 weeks time. Give me a call when you are back. You know my number. Nothing has changed.

With a smile, she turned around and waved good bye.

Good bye...

One week later, he heard of her death. She had perished in New York, in the event that shocked the world.

Midnight, once again, he lit his cigarette. And like before, he felt the lingering ache in his heart. He finally knew. She was the missing rib that he had carelessly broken.

Sometimes, people say things out of moments of fury. Most often than not, the outcome could be disastrous and detrimental. We vent our frustrations 99% at our loved ones. And even though we know that we ought to "think twice and act wisely", it's often easier said than done.

Things happen each day, many of which are beyond our control. Let us treasure every moment and everyone in our lives.

Tomorrow may never come. Give and accept what you have today.

Part two #2

A few days later Anita’s husband took her to the train station where they met the factory owner and the other women he had hired. They all boarded the train together and the train then left the station for its destination. While they were traveling the factory owner told the women that he had brought along some food for them to eat for lunch and he passed the food out to all of them and they had lunch together.

The next thing Anita remembered was waking up and noticing that she felt very strange and that it was dark outside and she was still on the train. The strange feeling lingered and soon she fell back asleep. 

When she woke up again she noticed that it was light outside and the train was traveling in a much more populated area, and she began to wonder where she was. Soon the train arrived at the station and the man who was the factory owner was joined by some other men and the women were taken from the train and put onto a bus.

The bus traveled further into the city and soon arrived at a hotel and all of the women were put into separate hotel rooms. A few hours later the man from the factory came to Anita’s room and told her the she had been chosen to work in a different factory and to go with the man who was introduced as the owner of the factory. Still suffering from the effects of being drugged to sleep she went with the man, but what she didn’t know was that he was really the owner of a brothel and she had been sold to him for 20,000 Indian Rupees to work in his brothel.

When they arrived at their destination the man took her into the building and as they were going up the stairs she suddenly realized that they weren’t in a factory at all and that she was clearly in trouble. Anita, finally getting over the effects of the drug began to resist and told the man that there was a misunderstanding and that she was supposed to be going to work in a factory. The man then began hitting her severely and threw her into a room and locked the door.

Three days went by and she was given no food and nothing to drink and finally she surrendered to the man’s demands and agreed to do whatever he said. She was finally given something to eat and was then introduced to her new job as a prostitute and all of the people she would be answering to in the brothel.

As time went on Anita began to learn in bits and pieces of conversations with the men who visited the brothel that she was in metro city, about a thousand kilometers from where she originally gotten on the train.

The days weeks and months came and went and then one day she was chosen by a man who was a new customer to the brothel. During their time together the man asked Anita where she was from and how it was that she came to be working in the brothel. Anita ran into tears and began telling him the story of how she was drugged and kidnapped and how it was that she came to be in the position she presently was in.

Some days later the man returned and again requested Anita’s company and when they were together he told Anita that he would help her escape the brothel and get to freedom and safety. They talked about how and when they would make their escape attempt and agreed on what they would do and where they would go together. The plan was now set and it would take place on the next visit the man would make to the brothel, in one week’s time.

When the day arrived Anita was very tense, and yet there was a certain excitement she was feeling at the hope of her pending escape from the brothel and the painful existence she had come to be accustomed to. She could hardly wait for the appointed time and the arrival of the man who promised to take her away from this terrible life and to the safety and freedom that awaited her. It was very clear to her that this man truly cared about her and that he was possibly even risking his own life should their escape be discovered and they should be caught.

Finally the time came and the man arrived at the brothel and as usual he was shown to Anita’s room. They immediately embraced and he told Anita that all was set and that they would wait a few minutes before they would carry out the plan. The man took this time to explain that they would go down to the end of the hallway and through the window, and then climb down the telephone pole that was just outside the window. Once they were on the ground they would run across and down the street until they got out of sight of the brothel and would then hail a taxi to take them to a nearby city where they would get a hotel room and spend the night. From there the next morning they would take a bus to the city where the man lived and they would start their new lives together.

The time came and out of the room they went, down the hallway to the window, the man helped Anita get on to the telephone pole first and then followed her. They were on the ground in just a few seconds and then they immediately followed the plan and ran down the street out of the view of the brothel. Amazingly no one seemed to have witnessed their escape and the man hailed down a passing taxi and they got in. The man quickly told the taxi driver where they wanted to be taken, that they were in a hurry to get there and he agreed to get them there as quickly as he could. 

On the way to their destination in the taxi driver asked why they seemed to be in such a hurry, and the man started explaining what he and Anita had just been through, and what their plans were. The taxi driver told them that he would help them however he could and that he was not going to charge them any money for the taxi ride or his help. Soon they arrived at the hotel and the taxi driver pulled his taxi up to the front door, stopped and wished them good luck, and when they were out of the taxi and had closed the door the taxi driver just smiled at them, nodded his head and drove away. Finally, it seemed, they were free.

The next morning Anita and the man woke up and checked out of the hotel. They then began walking to the bus station, which to Anita’s surprise was only a few blocks away from the hotel. It became clear to her that this man who risked so much to get her to freedom and safety had carefully thought out and devised their escape plan, so as to guarantee with as much certainty as possible, their success.

Once they arrived in the city where the man lived they got a taxi to take them to his home. Finally, Anita was free from the years of her troubled life and she was now in the care of a man who truly cared about and for her. It wasn’t long and they began to have children and fill their home with the love and respect that comes naturally when two people truly see themselves as each other’s life partners.

Story edited by Jeffrey Walters

Violence and Abuse

What you are about to read is the true life story of a young girl who at the age of 15 was thrown into the world of violence and abuse. The names and locations have been changed for the courtesy of providing privacy.

As a child growing up in the remote village of Orissa, in India, Anita was the eldest daughter and child in the family. She and the other children all attended a local school and Anita was studying in Standard 5 at the time. 

Living as they did, away from the benefits of more populated areas, meant that the opportunities in their daily lives were to a large degree much less promising than those of people living in more urban areas, but they managed quite well with what they had.

Anita’s father, the head of the family, worked as a truck driver for a local company and her mother took care of the household and all of the children. Their financial condition was certainly not one that anyone would consider wealthy, but everybody worked together and shared the daily tasks of the home and they managed to live relatively comfortably, though there was never the money required to provide any luxuries.

One day while her father was at his job driving the truck, he was following another delivery truck on the way to his delivery destination. Traffic was moving slowly as there was a marriage procession ahead of them. As is common in Indian marriage celebrations one of the men in the wedding party tossed a lit firecracker onto the road and when it went off the unsuspecting truck driver that Anita’s father was following suddenly slammed on his brakes.

This sudden stop caused the load of bagged agricultural Lime loaded on his truck to shift, resulting in some of the bags of Lime to be spilled onto the roadway, with the impact causing the bags to break open. Suddenly the powdered lime was scattered everywhere, and in the huge cloud of dust from the broken lime bags Anita’s father steered his truck towards the shoulder of the road finally getting his truck stopped without any further damages occurring.

But in the course of getting his truck safely stopped, Anita’s father had driven into and through the cloud of lime and some of it had gotten into his eyes, causing him terrible pain and temporarily blinding him.

After everything got settled down Anita’s father’s assistant took over the driving responsibilities and drove to the nearest hospital to have the doctor’s care for Anita’s father. At the hospital the doctors examined his eyes, but unfortunately the damage to his eyes was already done and the doctors told him that there was nothing that could be done to save his eyesight. 

With her father now back home and blinded, Anita’s family was now faced with the inescapable reality of finding a new way to provide for their needs now that her father, the family’s bread winner, could no longer work. This was a turning point in the family’s life and their condition went from bad to worse in no time.

Her mother began picking flowers from a nearby forest and started selling them at a local flower market to earn money to feed the family. And as there was no longer enough money to pay for her school fees, Anita a child of only 12, was forced to end her education. Her younger sister, suffering from polio and a lung condition soon began to fail in her health as there was no longer the money to pay for the needed medications and she soon died.

Anita was now feeling very sad, but was always trying to think of ways to earn money to help support the family. One day she met a lady in her village that had a job working in a factory in another town that manufactured ladies hand bags. Anita talked with this lady and explained her situation and asked the lady if she would inquire at the factory to see if Anita could go to work there.

After about a week the lady came back to the village and told Anita that she could have a job at the factory. So Anita went to work there and began providing the money to allow their family to pay for their living expenses.

When Anita was 15, one day her mother’s sister came to the house. While there Anita’s aunt asked Anita’s mother why she hadn’t found a suitable husband for Anita and her mother replied that she didn’t have the money that would be required for the dowry to get Anita married. So Anita’s aunt said that she would find a man who would be willing to pay for all of the wedding expenses. 

Three months later Anita’s aunt returned with a proposal. Anita and her father both voiced their opposition to the proposal as Anita was only 15 at the time, but her mother and her aunt said that the marriage would take place and informed the prospective groom’s family that the proposal was accepted.

After the wedding the new bride and groom, who was 10 years her elder, moved to Anita’s new husband’s village and set up their home. Being only 15 and unskilled in the responsibilities that come with managing a household, Anita soon fell from the graces of her new husband and he began to take his frustrations out on her by beating her. Unknown to Anita and her family at that time was the fact that Anita’s new husband was suffering from mental illness and this only added to the severity of the beatings.

The beatings continued until one day Anita was beaten into unconsciousness. After her consciousness returned Anita made the decision that she would no longer live under those conditions and so she returned to her parent’s home. Soon Anita’s husband was there at her parents home demanding that Anita come back home with him, but Anita refused and her parents agreed that she would not be returning to the husband’s village. A divorce was soon sought and granted and Anita once again began working at the women’s handbag factory.

Soon a year had passed and Anita met a man who also worked at the factory, they became friends and soon fell in love and decided to marry and move to the house where he was currently living. They seemed happy together and with them both working their jobs at the factory they were earning enough money to live comfortably.

Shortly after six months later Anita was injured in an accident on her way to work one day. The accident resulted in a broken leg and Anita’s leg was put into a cast and she was ordered by the doctor to stay off the leg as much as possible for the next 45 days. This was an unfortunate situation and soon Anita was informed that she no longer had a job at the women’s handbag factory. 

Once she had lost her factory job, her husband, realizing that the family income was now drastically reduced, began to look for a way to get out of this unfavorable situation. He contacted the owner of a brothel and arranged to sell Anita to the brothel owner for 10,000 Indian Rupees, or about $200.00 US. He then came home and told Anita that he had found her a job in a nearby town and that in a couple of days the owner of the factory would be arriving in town to take her and some other women he had hired by train to the city where the factory was located.

Continued in Part 2