Bonded Woman
(Dasi)

During the 1920’s, Kamalakshi comes as a slave to the large household of Jayasimha Rao, a local chieftain in the province of Telengana. She is part of the dowry of Jankaki, his beautiful, comfort-loving wife. Inevitably, she takes on all the duties that a dasi must perform : she churns the milk in the morning ; she washes and dresses Janaki, who is used to being waited upon. She also helps with the daily prayers and, at night, appeases the lust of the master of the house. Sometimes she is lent to male guests and relatives along with the other dasis. Surviving on scraps of leftover food, she leads a life of passive submission. Janaki, who pays anly an occasional visit to her husband’s bedroom, is childless, and watches with suppressed resentment as a stream of dasis take her place in her husband’s arms. When Kamalakshi is discovered to be pregnant, Janaki orders that she abort. Though violently opposed to this abortion, Kamalakshi finally realizes that, as a dasi, she has no right either to her body or to her unborn child, especially when the father could be any of the many men she was forced to satisfy.