They say addiction destroys a person.But no one warns you how it destroys the people who never chose it the child growing up in its shadow.What happens to a girl who learns fear from the man who was supposed to be her safest place?What does she become when “father” turns into a word shaped like trembling hands, lowered eyes, and nights she wishes she could scrub out of her memory?
She learns to read moods like weather forecasts.
She learns silence as a survival trick.
She becomes the keeper of peace in a house where no one protects hers.
And somehow she still whispers to herself,“Is it my fault?Did I not try hard enough?”
Outside, society doesn't offer comfort only judgements.Those looks, those whispers, that thrown carelessly at her “Uski beti...”Two words that sit heavily on her back,long after she grows up,long after she escapes.
Inside the house, the horror is quieter.A mother breaking in slow motion.
A father drowning in what he calls relief but what looks, smells, and feels like poison.
And a daughter stuck in between a wall, a bridge, a shield,anything except a child.
She grows up too quickly,her innocence traded for survival.Her emotions become secrets she tucks under her ribs because there is never space for her pain.”Home” becomes a place she looks for elsewhere in borrowed rooms, borrowed smiles, borrowed warmth anywhere but the place she was born into.
And the question that splits her in two remains:
Is it the person, or the addiction?
Who deserves forgiveness?
Who deserves fear?
Who should she blame?
Why must a child choose between love and safety?
Between loyalty and her own peace?
Between her father and her future?
They call addiction a disease. But why do daughters pay the bill?
Why do mothers carry the ruin?
Why do men fall into darkness and women are expected to hold up a collapsing roof?
Why must “uski beti” grow into a woman who flinches at raised voices, hides her softness like a fragile heirloom, and heals wounds she never caused?
The grown woman who learned fear before love,
responsibility before childhood,survival before joy.
She carried storms that were never hers.
Judged outside, wounded inside, aged before her time.
Taught fear by the man meant to guard her,
and strength by the woman who fought beside her.
A heart taught to stay quiet, a soul forced to stand tall,
because addiction roared louder than love.
And in the end, the worst tragedies are the ones a daughter survives
with no witnesses.
By- Laxmi Atkari
BCA 2024-2028