PEENGH

The word is unfamiliar, but the feeling is not.

In the north, where wheat bends under a wide blue sky, they call it Peengh.
Where I come from, where the rice bows low and heavy, it is Doli.

Different words. Same rhythm.
Up. Down. Rise. Fall.

Let’s call it a swing. A jhula.

In the courtyard of a sprawling haveli by the river stood a mango tree.
Old even then. Generous with shade. Home to a koel that announced every morning before the sun fully arrived.

And from one of its highest branches hung a swing.
Nothing grand—just a wooden plank and two thick ropes.

But it held the sky.

Every morning, children ran to it.
Every evening, the courtyard filled with the sound of laughter that refused to stay contained.

She was always the highest.

Dupatta flying, head thrown back, feet kicking against the wind as if she could outrun the earth itself.

Then one day, the swing was empty.

“Chalo, chalo, move away!” the gardener waved the children off.
The haveli was being dressed up.

The daughter of the house was getting married.

The same girl who once flew on the swing now sat still for hours.
Hands painted. Eyes lowered. Movements measured.

Somewhere, without saying it aloud, she knew—

something had ended.

Time, as it does, moved on without asking anyone.

The haveli aged.
The paint dulled.
The gates stayed closed longer than they opened.

The swing frayed.
The tree bent a little more each year.

The children grew into people with places to be, voices to soften, laughter to edit.

And then—Teej.

As if remembering itself, the house woke up.

The tree straightened.
The swing was restrung—strong ropes, polished wood.
The air filled with dholak beats, mehendi-darkened hands, songs that were bold and just a little wicked.

Women climbed onto the swing—hesitant at first, then not.

Heels kicked off.
Heads tilted back.
Laughter—full, throaty, unapologetic—rose again.

For a day, the world loosened its grip.

And then—it tightened again.

She returned.

Not as a bride.

Not as a daughter visiting.

But as something people did not know where to place.

She stayed inside.

The anklets were gone.
The vermilion had been wiped clean.
Her hands—empty.

“Not a widow,” they whispered.
“Something else.”

That word travelled faster than truth ever does.

No one asked her what had happened.

No one saw the night she stood outside her own door.
No one heard the sound of something inside her breaking—not loudly, just enough.

No one noticed how she stopped finishing her sentences.

The call came too late.

By the time her father reached her, she was smaller than he remembered.
As if she had been folded into herself.

The doctor spoke in low, careful tones.
Words like loss.
Words like damage.
Words that do not leave once they enter a room.

Her father stood there, holding her hand, searching her face.

Not for answers.

For the child who used to wait by his desk with a drawing in hand.
For the girl who trusted the world because he told her it was safe.

He did not find her.

Her mother did not weep.

She stood very still. Then she said, quietly but without tremor—

“We are taking her home.”

That was all.

But something shifted.

Back in the haveli, doors opened again.

Not to guests.
To air.

The father stood at the threshold of her room more often than he sat.
As if guarding not just her—but the time he could not return.

They did not speak of what had happened.

But they did not pretend it hadn’t.

Days passed.

Then one afternoon, the sky changed.

Heavy. Waiting.
The kind of stillness that comes before rain breaks everything open.

The wind arrived first.

Not gently.

It pushed through windows, lifted curtains, unsettled the quiet that had settled too comfortably.

It moved through her room like it remembered her.

Come.

She looked out.

The mango tree swayed—not tired now, not defeated.

Alive.

The swing moved.

Not much. Just enough.

Waiting.

She stepped out.

Slowly at first.
Then faster.

The ground was warm beneath her feet. The air thick.

The first drop fell.

Then another.

By the time she reached the swing, the sky had given in.

She sat.

Held the ropes.

For a moment, she did nothing.

Then—

she pushed.

Once.

Again.

Higher.

The rain soaked through her clothes, her hair, her skin.
The wood was slick beneath her hands.

The swing rose.

The world tilted.

And something inside her—something that had been held down, pressed flat, silenced—

rose with it.

Her feet kicked the air.

Her head fell back.

And then—

she laughed.

Not carefully.

Not softly.

But fully.

The kind of laughter that does not care who is listening.

 

Thunder answered.

The wind wrapped around her.

The tree held.

On the verandah, her parents stood still.

They did not call her back.

Higher.

The past did not disappear.

But it loosened its grip.

For the second there,
she was not what had been done to her.

She was not what had been taken.

She was not what they had named her.

 

She was movement.

Breath.

Sky.

 

The swing soared.

And this time—

she did not hold back.