Maid Rani

Anwara Malik (Maid Rani)

Caste: NA

Religion: Muslim

Age: 32 years

Family: 2 children with first marriage. Now married to second man named

Daughter: Nargis 12 years

Son: Sohail Malik

Father: Samad Malik (crop-sharing Farmer)

Village: Dhulogarh

District: Howrah

Brother: 2, both younger to her and working as construction laborers in Mumbai

Sisters: 4, 3 of which married and settled back in surrounding villages

1 sister lives with Father. Her husband ran away after 6-months of marriage and getting her pregnant. No news since then, her boy is now 4 years old!

Mother: Died when rani was 12 years old. That’s when the catastrophy began. Her father got her married to a village man 30 years older to her, just after 40 days of Mother’s death. Also paid a dowry of 5000 Rs.

After which the father remarried another girl of 18 years. Who ran away within a year, and since then has another girl. He now lives with his 4^th wife, who somehow had no courage to run away.

Meanwhile Rani was beaten, raped and tortured by her husband. By age 16 she had a girl child. By the time she came to her senses she had another boy. Still her husband would beat and torture her daily. Not able to take it anymore, she ran away, landing in Kolkatta. While sitting in Howrah Railway station, she met a woman, who said she can find good work for her in Delhi. So with no option of returning she accompanied the woman in the train to a new future. While in Train a fellow passenger, a man from Kolkatta overheard the woman making calls to different people in Delhi and fixing up a price for selling Rani. When he realized this, he informed Rani what was going on and asked her to come away with him. Rani was in torn state, didn’t know whom to believe and with whom to go. She was scared of the woman, but at the same time the stranger was a man, whose intentions could be wrong too.

Finally on the New Delhi station platform, while the woman was busy taking advance money, Rani and the stranger slinked away. Thus the man saved her life married her. She is indebted to him for life. 2-years later Rani got her 2-children from the village too.

She has now been living in Delhi for 9-years, never once been back to Bengal, as her father doesn’t want to see her. She brought bad name to him, by running away from her husband.

Rani has been doing jobs of all kinds, cleaning, dusting, washing, cooking. Life still didn’t get better. 4-years back her son was playing in the archaeological park, When 3-men came in a autorickshaw and asked him for directions to dargah. When he came near to show them the way, they pulled him inside and fled away. Rani was devastated, after all the running away from one extreme life, another disaster came about.  She and her husband ran all over from police to dervishes to find the son, but to no avail. She almost lost her mind, not eating, not speaking, running whenever any vague news of son came through.

After about 7-months the miracle happened. Her son who was kidnapped and kept in a slum in Yamuna Vihar area returned. Apparently he aboy of 7-8 years at the time, was beaten up and kept locked for 5-6 months. Afterwhich he was let out little bit and made to do small tasks around the slum. One day he was given some money and sent to buy milk at a nearby shope. The boy went and after reaching the shop, ran away. He was lucky to remember that his house was in Mehrauli, a passerby pointed him to a DTC bus directly going to Mehrauli Bus Terminus. He sat on the bus and reached, from bus stop he knew where he lived and made it without further incident. What a story!! Hard to believe, mother and son both going through same plots and just being lucky to survive!!