The steel dabba clattered against the kitchen counter, louder than Meera intended. Her mother flinched.

“Careful, beta. You’ll dent it.”

Meera watched her mother’s hands quick, practiced, efficient packing rotis into the tiffin her father would take to the bank.

“Ma, just use the new containers. These are falling apart.”

“They work fine.” Her mother said without looking up.

“I can buy new ones. ”

“and with what money?”

The question hung in the air . Meera had a degree in commerce with decent marks and still had to justify buying a two-hundred-rupee tiffin box.

“I have money, Ma. From tuitions .”

“That's yours beta .” Her mother finally met her eyes.

The morning sounds filtered through the kitchen window .The colony was waking up, and with it, the familiar choreography of middle-class survival.

“Saroj!” Her grandmother’s voice cut through from the living room. “Where’s my tea? Do I have to die of thirst in this house?”

Her mother’s shoulders tensed subtle, automatic.

“Coming, Maa ji.”

Meera watched her mother pour tea into the special cup the one with the pink roses that no one else was allowed to use. The sugar went in first, then the tea .

“You’re still here?” Her grandmother appeared in the doorway, wrapped in her cotton saree. “Don’t you have tuitions?”

“Holiday, Dadi.”

“Hmm. Twenty-two years old, sitting at home. In my day, girls your age had two children already.”

“Times are different now, Maa ji,” her mother said quietly, handing over the tea.

“Different?” Her grandmother laugh . “Different because girls roam around with boys, waste their parents money on useless degrees, and think they’re too good for marriage? That kind of different?”

“I’m not wasting anyone’s money. I got a scholarship.”

“Scholarship.” Her grandmother Sipped her tea with exaggerated delicacy. “And what will you do with this scholarship? This degree? You think some big company will hire you? You’ll sit in an office with men?”

“That’s how jobs work, Dadi.”

“Don’t be smart with me.” The teacup clinked against the saucer. “Your mother thinks I don’t see, but I see everything. You fill her head with these ideas. As if being a wife and mother isn’t good.”

Meera looked at her mother, hoping for support. For a single word of defense.

Her mother rearranged the rotis in the dabba. Silent.

“The Sharma family is looking for a suitable girl for their younger son,” she continued. “He has a government job. They own a double-storey house in Sector 15. Good, decent family. No dowry demands. Your father is meeting them next week.”

The words landed like stones in water.

“I’m not getting married.”

Silence.

Her grandmother set down her teacup very carefully. “What did you said ?”

“I said I’m not getting married .”

“Meera....” her mother started, but her grandmother cut her off.

“Do you hear this, Saroj? This is what happens when you don’t control your daughter. This is the poison of education. I told her father, but no one listens to me in this house.”

“Maa ji, please, the neighbors....”

“Let them hear! Let everyone hear what kind of girl she is . Refusing marriage? At twenty-two? What will people say? That there’s something wrong with her? That no one wants her?”

“Maybe I don’t want them,” Meera said .

Her grandmother stood up. “You don’t want? Since when do girls in this family have wants? You think you’re special? You think you’re different from your mother, from me, from every woman ?”

“Yes,” Meera said, and the word came out stronger than she’d intended. “Yes, I do.”

The slap would have come then Meera saw it in her grandmother’s eyes, the rise of her hand but her father’s voice stopped it.

“What’s all this noise?”

He stood in the doorway, already dressed for work.

“Ask your daughter,” her grandmother spat. “Ask her what nonsense she’s talking. Refusing marriage. Wanting to work with men. What kind of girl have you raised?”

Her father looked at Meera. She held his gaze, searching for support .

“we’ll discuss this later. I’m getting late for work.”

He picked up his tiffin, touched her grandmother’s leg and walked out.

The door clicked shut.

Meera looked at her mother, who was crying silently over the kitchen sink.

“Ma...”

“Just go to your room, beta......”

So she went to the room. the same room she shared with her elder sister Priya until she got married last year.

Priya, called her sometimes, mostly talking about her husband’s preferences and her mother-in-law’s expectations and never, about what she wants.

Priya had once told Meera that Rohit had agreed to let her work after marriage. She’d been so happy while talking about it. Only for her mother-in-law to say no later and for Rohit to agree with his mother. So now Priya’s degree in English literature gathered dust while she learned how to make perfectly round rotis .

Meera sat on her bed and opened her laptop the one she’d bought with tutoring money and some savings. She opened the email she’d been reading and rereading for three days.

From: Tec Venture Solutions Subject: Interview Invitation - Junior Accountant Position

Dear Ms. Meera Agarwal,

Thank you for your application. We would like to invite you for an interview...

The salary was mentioned at the bottom. Twenty-two thousand rupees per month to start.

Meera thought of her mother who’d never earned anything, except permission to exist in someone else’s house, on someone else’s terms.

She thought of the word her mother had used “allowed.”

As if freedom was something granted, not taken.

Like wanting something for yourself was a privilege, not a right.

Meera clicked “Reply” and began typing.

Dear Sir/Madam,

Thank you for the opportunity. I would be pleased to attend the interview...

Outside her window, the colony moved through its usual morning routine , wives hanging washed clothes out to dry, mothers walking children to school, the vegetable vendor calling out his prices.

Meera hit “Send.”

She glanced outside her window ..........

"Freedom is not something that can be wanted" and I am done asking .

So… how was the beginning? 💛

I’d love to know your thoughts, favorite moments, or anything you felt while reading this chapter ✨

See you in the next chapter.

Shana