Broken contracts

On the night of ---, three contracts were drawn. They did not deal with money but people, three to
be exact, who were then treated as objects, possessions, and properties of the owner named in the
contract.

The first contract is concerned with the individual named Charu who was the daughter of farm
laborers, sold to the landowner because the parents committed suicide and she was left alive with
the burden of debt.

The second contract names an individual Zakir, who was the son of a political worker, sold to the
leader of the opposition party, because his father embezzled money from the election funds and
went into hiding.

The third contract names an individual Seena, daughter of renowned liquor baron Mittal, who sold
herself to a couple because she decided that they were superior individuals than her and had a right
to own her.

The interesting thing that connects all the three individuals is not just the contracts but many other
things. One of them being that they broke their contracts willingly, the same way they had entered
the contracts. One of them had limited choices, and the other had a multitude of choices, but they
chose o be without choice. As a result, their apparent reality reflects how choices determine the
extent of our freedom, especially those choices we make during the important decisions of our lives
when we are confronted with alternative paths, where choosing one means foregoing the other
completely. Entering a contract, which is often seen as a choice, is essentially not just that but more,
depending upon the terms of the contact. The terms of the contract can be limiting or freeing,
further depending upon the nature of contract. In the case of these three individuals, as will be seen,
these terms are determined to a great extent at the time of birth.

Charu was born into a family of agricultural laborers in the village of Malerkotla in Punjab. She was
the eldest of three daughters, the youngest Priya and the other Sonam. The father Arihant and the
mother Meena tried their best to raise the child with the strength of their labor, and somehow
managed to meet the needs of the family. Both Arihant and Meena spent hungry nights twice every
week just to feed their daughters so that they would grow properly and become healthy women, as
they were equally attached to all their daughters. The parents mostly found work in the fields of the
landowning families, who barely paid the laborers enough wages upon which a human being could
survive. The result was that the laborers were reduced to beggars and had to plead with the
landlords for money every time they fell short. The brunt of degradation and humiliation faced by
them sometimes also extended to physical violence. To protect themselves from the violence of
being abducted, mauled, or executed by the landlords, the laborers went in groups to the landlord
to request for a few rupees more. At a time in the fields of the landlords, close to a thousand
laborers were employed. Some laborers doubled as supervisors to keep the activities of the other
laborers in check, and also to report back to them landlords. This group of laborers received some
special treatment and perks, but they were no different from the other laborers and lived in the
same village as other laborers. Arihant used to do the work of supervision for one landlord, but fell
from grace after serving him for five years because he was falsely accused of stealing cartons of
mango, by the others who wanted always to keep the circle of labor supervisors tight and closely
knit, in which apparently did not fit. After losing his job n the village, he went to find work in the city
of Ludhiana, and it was there he met Meena, when he was working as an helper at a juice shop. He
came to the city with nothing, only the promise of some kind of remunerative work by his childhood
friend, who managed to set him up for this job. He stayed for more than five months in a Gurudwara
and also worked there as a helper during the langar.