Chapter 1: My name is Sabita.
My name is Sabita.
Thirty-two years of age, five feet five inches tall, fair-skinned, and a professor of Mathematics at a reputed college. On paper, it might sound like I have everything a woman could wish for — a decent career, a stable income, and a respectable marriage of five years. But what no one ever tells you is how quiet heartbreak can be. How it doesn't always come with loud arguments or broken dishes. Sometimes, it creeps in silently… like a crack in a glass vase — invisible at first, but deepening with time until it shatters completely.
I was twenty-seven when I married Ravi.
He was everything my parents had wanted — tall, soft-spoken, working in an IT company with a foreign assignment history. Our horoscopes matched, and our families exchanged sweets and garlands like people passing on fragile dreams. I wasn't in love with him when we married, but I believed I would grow into it. That's what Indian women are told, aren't we? "Pyaar toh shaadi ke baad ho jaata hai, beta," they said. Love comes later — after the sindoor, the rituals, and the sacrifices.
And for a while, it did.
Ravi was gentle, respectful. He would kiss my forehead before leaving for work, and I'd pack his tiffin with a smile. Our nights were filled with soft moans and whispered laughter, our weekends with grocery runs and movie nights. We weren't perfect, but we were comfortable. I started thinking maybe this was enough.
Then came the pressure.
It started with a question — always polite, always masked in sweetness. "Koi khushkhabri?" my mother-in-law asked one evening, sipping her tea with a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
When I said no, she didn't comment. Not then. But I felt the shift — the way she stopped bringing me sweets from the temple, the way her gaze lingered longer on my abdomen than my face. Ravi told me to ignore it, that we were "still young" and "it'll happen when it's meant to." I believed him. Or at least, I wanted to.
But months passed. Then a year.
We consulted doctors. Tests were run. Needles pricked, and probes invaded. The verdict was clear — I was healthy. But Ravi? His reports were never discussed. His mother would loudly chant, "Sab kuch toh normal hai, toh problem kaha hai? Aurat hi toh garbh dharan karti hai." As if being a woman automatically made infertility my fault.
Slowly, the warmth between Ravi and me began to fade. He stopped holding my hand when we watched TV. Our conversations turned transactional — "What's for dinner?" "Did you pay the bill?" "Mummy ka medicine le aayi?"
I began to miss the sound of my own laughter.
Nights became the hardest. We still shared a bed, but he would sleep with his back turned, his breaths even and distant. I craved his touch, not just sexually, but emotionally — a hand on my cheek, a whisper of reassurance, anything. But all I received was silence.
I started working late. Took extra classes, guided research students, signed up for college workshops — anything to avoid going home early. My colleagues praised my dedication, not realizing it was born from desperation, not ambition.
One evening, I stayed behind after class to finish some paperwork. The staffroom was quiet, the corridors dimly lit. As I typed, I suddenly felt tears sting my eyes. I hadn't even realized I was crying. It was that quiet kind of weeping — the kind that escapes without permission. I quickly wiped my face, ashamed of my own vulnerability.
I looked at my reflection in the glass window. I still looked… beautiful. Not in a film heroine way, but in the soft, real way women of my age do — with curves that have matured, a gaze that has seen both passion and pain. My figure hadn't changed — 36-32-38, something Ravi once used to tease me about when we were newlyweds. Now, even my undressing didn't stir anything in him.
Was I not desirable anymore?
Was I just a womb that failed?
That night, I reached home late. Ravi was already asleep. My mother-in-law didn't say a word as I entered. But I noticed the way she looked at the clock, then at me, her judgment heavy in the silence. I walked into my room and sat on the edge of the bed, still dressed in my saree. My body felt heavy, but my heart felt heavier.
I don't know how long I sat there, staring at the floor. Finally, I undressed in the dark, slipped under the blanket, and turned away from Ravi.
I think that was the first time I admitted it to myself.
Something was broken.
Not in our bodies — but in the space between us.
Days turned into weeks. The distance between Ravi and me widened like a road in a drought-struck village — cracked, arid, uncrossed. I tried to talk to him once, tried to ask if he still wanted this marriage. He looked at me, eyes tired and indifferent, and said, "Let's not make things more difficult, Sabita. Sab theek ho jayega."
Sab theek ho jayega.
The biggest lie Indian couples tell each other when their hearts have already stopped trying.
One weekend, I visited my parents alone. Amma hugged me a little too tightly, and Baba avoided my eyes. They had heard whispers — from relatives, from neighbors, from society — all eager to dissect my womb, my worth, my womanhood.
"Beta, koi doctor achhe se check kara lo. Mummy ka kehna maan lo ek baar," Amma said gently as she served me halwa.
I smiled and nodded, swallowing both the sweet and the bitterness.
How could I tell her the problem wasn't my body?
How could I tell her that I missed being wanted… not just for my fertility, but for me?
***
Sometimes, answers don't come from within, but from outside — from a mirror held by someone who isn't afraid to tell you the truth.
That mirror, for me, was my friend Megha.
It happened one afternoon during a rare coffee outing. Megha and I had known each other since college. She was the kind of woman who spoke her mind — bold, unfiltered, and unapologetically aware of her own body and pleasure. I had always admired that about her, even if I never understood it fully.
We were sitting by the window of a small café, rain tapping rhythmically against the glass. The air smelled of freshly brewed coffee and unresolved emotions.
She was halfway through her latte when she looked at me and said, "Sabita, what's really bothering you?"
And for the first time in years, I didn't pretend.
I told her about the silences in my marriage, about the loneliness that hung in my bedroom like invisible cobwebs. I told her about the baby that never came, and the warmth that slowly faded from Ravi's touch.
She listened patiently, nodding, until I hesitated — unsure whether I should go further.
Then she said, "Tell me something honestly… how's your sex life?"
I blinked.
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