Indrani Baruah's The Homecoming And Other Stories Explores Earnest Everyday Life's Tales

Inspired by everyday life, especially in the northeast of India, The Homecoming and Other Stories is a heartwarming collection of short stories exploring diverse themes.

Faced with a set of challenges, the protagonists, who are of different age groups, are compelled to make choices that affect their future. The stories earnestly and realistically showcase present-day society without judging anyone. The portrayal of the different characters, with all their idiosyncrasies, will stay with you for a very long time, if not forever.

Here's an excerpt from Indrani Baruah's The Homecoming and Other Stories

Ritu looked at the message on her cell phone and sat down on her bed. She was shocked. She read the messages again. She grew pale and trembled at the implication.
‘It couldn’t be!’ she thought. ‘Did he really mean it? What was she to do now?’ Ritu was perspiring profusely.

Ritu was a nineteen-year-old girl based in Guwahati. She studied at Cotton College and lived with her mother in Panjabari. Her parents divorced when she was just two years old. Her mother worked as a teacher in a government school. The money she earned was not sufficient for them to survive, so her mother took tuitions to supplement her income.

She was a friendly girl and enjoyed going to college. She had studied in an all-girls school all her life and studying in a co-educational college was very new and exciting for her. She made a lot of friends in college.

She was introduced to Raj by one of her friends. Raj was her senior in college and also a rising actor. He was very popular and extremely good-looking. So when Raj singled her out and asked for her friendship, Ritu could not believe it. She had always admired him from a distance. He was always with a group of friends, having a good time. In fact, she wondered whether he even attended any of his classes. Girls vied for his attention and he knew his charms.

Ritu could not believe that Raj was interested in her. She was over the moon. He sought her out in college and took her for coffee in cafés and restaurants. He came to college on a bike and offered to drop her home. Ritu was, of course, careful to hide all these facts from her mother.

Then, Raj started demanding nude photos from Ritu. She was apprehensive at first, but she gave in to Raj’s cajoling eventually. Raj even clicked nude photos of the two of them in compromising positions. Ritu did not object as she thought there was nothing wrong in giving in to his demands.

Ritu soon noticed that he was beginning to spend more time with another group of girls. She was jealous as she watched the situation for a few days. One day, she could bear it no more and confronted him. Raj slapped her in front of everyone. She was shocked. She had never felt so humiliated in her life and so she decided to avoid him. After two or three of such violent incidents, she decided to break off her relationship with Raj. She did not have the courage to tell him to his face and so she texted him her decision.

The reply shocked her. He had threatened her with dire consequences. He would post her nude photos on social media if she broke off her relationship with him.
What was she to do? He was blackmailing her. He would leak her photos and they would go viral and it would spoil her reputation. She was devastated. Had she been in love with such a vile person? She had been duped by his attractive personality. He had swept her off her feet and she had been blind to all his faults. She could not sleep that night.

The next morning, she decided to meet him in person. Raj had been expecting it. She pleaded her case and asked him for all her photos. He laughed at her.
‘What do you want from me?’ she asked in desperation.

‘To continue our relationship like before,’ he replied promptly.

Ritu felt defeated. The next couple of months were terrible for her. She could neither tell anyone about her problems nor decide what to do. She could not eat or sleep properly and this tension was affecting her adversely. She would die of shame if her pictures were to be made public. Her life was a mess. Sometimes, in the dead of the night, she thought about ending her life, but then she thought about her mother. No. She could not bring such grief to her mother.

After a lot of thought, she decided to file a complaint. Mustering her courage, she went to the local police station. Luckily for her, the complaint was registered and assigned to a dynamic young police officer. He asked her not to worry.

Raj was arrested by the police. Ritu panicked because she had not expected such quick action to be taken. His friends at the college were surprised. They did not know what to make of it.

Raj had been so sure that Ritu would not complain about him and so he did not know why he had been arrested. When he was questioned, he decided to play innocent.

Then his house was searched and his laptop, pen drives and his mobile were seized. The police had arrested him based on a specific complaint. They searched his laptop and found out that there were photographs of several girls in the nude or in intimate positions. He was produced in court the next day and remanded in police custody for five days.

For Raj, those were the worst five days of his life. He had never been so afraid before. His family were shocked by the turn of events and were ashamed of him. They felt that he should be punished. He was then sent to jail after his police remand was over.

Ritu, on the other hand, was still afraid that Raj would harm her after he was released from jail. She attended college regularly, but she was always scared that Raj would appear, bully her and create a scene. Sometimes at night, she would wake up in cold sweat.

After a month or so, on her way to college, she saw Raj. Her heart skipped a beat. What if he confronted her now? Raj had seen her, but he hurriedly turned away from her and changed his route.

Ritu was puzzled. Why had he done that?

Unknown to her, the young police officer had fixed her problem. Raj was made to strip at the police station and pose in the nude. His pictures were clicked in his birthday suit. He was threatened that if he bullied or blackmailed anyone in future, his nude photos would be plastered all over the town.

Excerpted with permission from ‘The Homecoming And Other Stories’ by Indrani Baruah; and published by Rupa Publications India. You can also join SheThePeople’s Book club on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.

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