High Walls and No Window

"Can I take up a job, please?" she asked him one more time.

He gave her an exasperated look.
"Why do you need a job!" he asked shaking his head, "Tell me if the money I provide you is not enough! I can give you more. You may even go and shop for whatever you wish to!"

She sighed.
"It's not about money! I feel useless at home. I don't want to be a housewife!" she muttered in a low but defiant voice.

He put his palms on her shoulders softly. "We are a rich and well known family. You doing a job is something Mother and Father wouldn't like. Besides, with this family business, you don't need to! You take care of our house, you know, that's a huge responsibility." With each of his words, the grip on her shoulders became more authoritative.

She stood there wordlessly.

"And yes, by the way," he continued, "Could you please return that dress you bought the other day? I would like you to wear a Saree on Friday's function at my office. Wear that red one I gifted you last week. You look lovely in that!"

She had opened her mouth to say something in protest before he silenced her with a kiss on her forehead.

"Now could you keep my breakfast and coffee ready while I take a bath?"
She saw him leaving hurriedly, his sugar-coated, disguised command ringing in her ears.

She looked around at her magnificent house. Rich silk purple drapes, antique mirrors adorning peach walls, sleek white floor reflecting the tiny golden lights on the false ceiling.

No window though. She could do with some fresh air.
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"Tell me something that I don't know already!" She told her friend.

"Fine! Let me see." her friend replied drawing indecipherable charts on her notebook, "umm.. It seems that you will get a really rich husband. He will be from a prestigious family and you will have all kinds of riches. Hmm... And oh! You will have a palace-like home." her friend said observing the strange charts she had drawn, tracing her fingers over the numbers she had written in a square.

"Tell me something more!" she demanded, rolling her eyes. She couldn't deny that her friend's words had pleased her; she smiled to herself wishing she were true.

"Well," her friend said with an air of a learned scholar, "If I am not wrong, and I hope I am, you have Bandhan Yog in your horoscope." she finished quite dramatically.

She gave her a puzzled look demanding an explanation.

"It indicates that you might have to spend a long time in a prison. Captivity, basically."

She snickered skeptically and her friend gave her a little reproachful look.

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Now she knows that the Prison is not the only prison.

Some prisons may even have purple silk curtains, peach walls and sleek white floor.