Tears rolled out of Madhuri's bewildered eyes without a respite. Her father's remarks kicked her in the gut and made her insides churn. A sharp, stabbing ache stemmed from the back of her sternum and radiated throughout her chest.

"D-Die..."

Girish's aggressive stance and marauding step in her direction caused Madhuri's cry to perish in her larynx. The methodical annihilation of her soul had commenced with the death of her dreams, and her head reeled with the understanding that it was time for the death of her voice.

"Yes. Drown. It is better for us to declare that unprincipled girl is no more rather than explaining that she is breathing down on our necks after deserting her home! Did you think about your unmarried brother? We will lose out on prosperous prospects because of your idiocy, and we won't get the money back, which we spent in your wedding, you ungrateful woman!"

The ceaseless sobs had left her throat parched, and the pangs of hunger and woe ravaged her crippled soul. The waves of the deluge had besieged her dignity, and she was as defenseless as an ant hemmed in by drops of water coalescing around it.

"I can't..."

"The audacity of this girl! Is this how you raised her, Sangeeta? You had one job, and you failed beyond belief. Throw her out of the house! Let her understand we will not entertain her antics!"

Madhuri's tremulous eyes darted towards her mother. Her mother could not forsake her, could she? Someone who carried her for nine months in her womb would not abandon her, or so Madhuri wished.

Sangeeta's face glimmered with the trails of tears that had escaped her eyes. "People will see her in the morning. What will we answer?"

The noose of powerlessness stiffened around her neck as it came to her notice, she was impoverished in the matters of any support to salvage her battered dignity.

"Let her receive a few taunts! They will dissolve her resolve and irrationality! Throw her out!" said Girish, with no hint of benevolence and consideration in his enraged eyes.

The touch of her mother's fingers burned her skin instead of soothing her. Madhuri turned to her mother with pleading eyes, but the woman next to her was not the same one who nurtured and nourished her. This woman was someone who had given away her daughter and scrubbed away every responsibility of hers.

Sangeeta shoved Madhuri over the threshold of their home and slammed the door shut. Was it so easy, Madhuri marveled, to drive someone out of one's home as two different women had offered her the same treatment in the matter of a few hours.

Her eyes glanced at the Heavens above, appealing for justice from the Lord she worshipped. The unadulterated atmosphere of the village allowed her to gaze at the magnificent constellations that were obscured by the smog in Delhi. Just like her dreams had drifted out of focus when she had relocated to Delhi after her marriage.

Death.

Her dreams had died a slow death over the years and had left behind shattered shards that continued to prick at the more audacious part of heart. The death of her voice was less profound. When her voice stopped being hers and had breathed the last, Madhuri could not recall. But it was the abrupt and lethal threat to her dignity that threatened to kill her vitality.

An existence bereft of means to fulfill her dreams and voice her heart, and with a debilitating disability to safeguard her honor and self-respect did not feel worth fighting for anymore. Not as she stood alone in a place that was no longer her own, renounced by her parents and her in-laws, and beleaguered by the deception of the man who had sworn to honor and cherish her.

Her wobbly legs forced their way down the roads she had strolled on for years. Unlike all those moments in the past, it was not for gratification that she had sought the route. She had chosen the path laden with beautiful flowers, whose names remained undiscovered to her, to ease and end her pain.

Anupriya surveyed the lake near her childhood home. They had turned the lights off, and she could not dare to wake her parents. She had wished to catch at least a passing glance of them, but circumstance had not fulfilled her wish.

The frame of a woman wandering towards the lake seized her attention. The women of the village seldom left their houses after the sun had set. The observation had surely made her curious. It was not until the woman had come under one of the few streetlights in the village that Anupriya recognized her to be her friend, Madhuri.

The disappointed and perturbed features endorsed her worst fears. Madhuri's parents had refused to support her. Anupriya let out an embittered sigh and made her way towards Madhuri. Shock took aback her when she saw her friend take an abrupt turn towards her left. Before she could realize Madhuri's intent, she had leapt into the lake.

Anupriya's blood ran cold, and a shriek slipped her lips. "Madhuri! Oh, God! No!"

Anupriya raced towards the banks of the lake and switched on the flashlight of her phone to look at her friend grappling in the water. Water horrified Madhuri and Anupriya from a budding age, and they had remained away from it. The older woman knew that Madhuri could not swim, but neither could she.

"HELP! HELP! Madhuri is drowning! HELP!"

The lights of the residences around the lake gleamed, and the inhabitants hustled out to figure out the source of the commotion. Anupriya's parents and her elder brother dashed out of their home and stood stupefied as they came to face their disowned daughter and estranged sister.

"You! What are you doing here?" asked her father, Pratap. His wife, Vinita, gasped in shock as her eyes landed on Madhuri's drowning figure.

Anupriya joined her palms in complete renunciation and turned to her brother. "Bhaiyya! Please! This is not the time for this! Madhuri is drowning! Please save her!"

Rakesh, without a moment's hesitation, discarded his footwear before surging into the basin. He waded his way towards the struggling woman and grabbed her by her waist before picking her up into his arms. It was not the depth of the water that had imperiled her survival; the fear in her heart and the lack of will in her mind had abolished her ingrained attempts to stay afloat.

He rushed to the shore, where more than a quarter of the village, including Madhuri's unsettled parents, stood. He laid her delicately on the bank and Anupriya bowed beside her friend to use her professional education as a nurse to resuscitate her.

"Please! Call the ambulance! It is not a time for anyone to open old wounds!"

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I don't condone what Madhuri has done. Suicide is not the solution. Please don't use phrases like 'go die' callously because we never know what the other person is going to do with those words.