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For the first time, the ritual of seeing Preeti off till she was out of sight was broken. For some reason, she felt uneasy. It was not a good omen. When Preeti reached the bus-stop which was near her house, she was already late. As she fidgeted, she thought about the evening ahead. She was to meet a ‘match' introduced by her neighbour. The boy was settled in his family business and doing well for his young age. Since both the families were conservative, they had decided that the ‘meeting' ritual would be just that - as matters had more or less been finalised by the elders.

Uncharacteristically, Preeti had taken pains to tidy up her face, going through the tedious motions of waxing, bleaching, threading and facial the previous day. She had shaped her nails and applied a red enamel that went well with her fair and clear skin. For this once, she was determined to make an impression on the other party. Her father was not a rich man, and she wanted to score even with the boy by looking her best. Losing this match, though she was sure it would not happen, would upset her family tremendously. She knew it. The boy's family had already conceded their request to hold the marriage six months later so that she could complete her final year in college. Preeti was a BCom student and she had post-marriage plans for herself. She intended doing her CA and working for some firm. She wanted her younger sister to have a good education. She wanted to do something for her parents who'd done so much for her ... But why wasn't the bus coming?!

As she looked around she saw two men approaching her. They casually walked past her and then retraced their steps. Before she knew what was happening, she felt a stinging, burning sensation on her face, which was spreading to her neck. And then she didn't remember anything. The next thing she knew she was in a hospital, with her mother's ashen face peering into her face. In a flash, the scene came back to her. The two men walking away, yelling "Tereko roop ka bahut guman hain, na, (You think you are very pretty, don't you?) even as the few commuters around her gasped in horror at what they'd witnessed.

No one on the busy street, she was told later, had dared to chase the men, or notify the police. She had collapsed and was rushed to the hospital where the doctors had declared that she'd suffered severe burns on her face. She had lost her right eye and they were not confident of saving her left eye.

Her mother had come tearing down to the bus-stop when a neighbour, whose house overlooked the street, had informed her. Terrified, horrified and grief-stricken, she tried to find ways in her muddled mind of contacting her husband who was always on outdoor duty. Some helpful neighbour eventually tracked him down.

Young Prapti lay by her sister's side, tears rolling down her plump cheeks as she tried to comfort her sister whose face was beyond recognition. There were deep hollows in the place of her cheeks and one side of her face was completely black. Of course, the doctors had bandaged her neck and face but it was unbearable to look at whatever was visible.

Preeti lay in a coma for the better part of a month as the doctors struggled to save her. With 65 per cent burns, they said, the chances were not so bad if her head had not suffered too much damage. Fortunately, it hadn't and Preeti lived.

Her life for the next three years was an endless round of hospitalisation and round-the-clock home care when she was being bandaged three times a day, and insipid food was being fed through a pipe. Resurrection of her face meant that skin had to be peeled off her thighs and grafted on to the damaged portions.

This procedure, painfully slow and tortuous, took up most of her recovery period after her metabolism was brought back to normal.

The injections kept her drowsy all through the day and she had no thought for anything, least of all her future. That her future was no longer secure was the first thing that had hit her father. He was not sure why this had happened to his daughter who never interacted much with the boys of her college, least of all the rowdies.

The case was all over the newspapers and he didn't know how to shield his family from the needless scandal that had enveloped them. The prospective groom, whom everyone had hailed as a perfect match, wasted no time in getting engaged to another girl.

The police version, when they decided to come up with one after a strident media outcry, talked of a shocking case of mistaken identity. A trader residing in the locality wanted to take revenge on his ex-wife who had deserted him. He had hired the two goons to throw acid on her face, to strip her of the one asset she was so proud of. The goons were traced and the guy too was put behind bars. He sent his sincere apologies to Preeti for the mistake and walked out on bail. The ex-wife, the real target, too sent her sympathies.

Preeti's mother recounted this to all her visitors with anguish. "She is remarried and happily out of the reach of her ex-husband who too is moving about freely. And my daughter is lying there with her eyesight gone, her face damaged irreparably, her hair burnt and her condition unpredictable.

Money was not the problem, since it came pouring in as did sympathy. Film stars visited her, flourishing grand cheques, relatives materialised from nowhere and expressed satisfaction with her progress and with the empathy generated.

But for some reason, Preeti did not feel too grateful. She felt wretched as she thought of her life being taken away from her hands by two unknown persons whom she had done no harm and for a man she had nothing to do with.

She had survived but her life had been shattered beyond redemption. Right now, it was a series of complications and medicines and infections as she was susceptible to anything that floated in the air.

Her younger sister had dropped out of school for a year to help her mother cope with the crisis. The mother, a cringing shadow of her happy self who used to burst with pride at the very thought of Preeti's engagement, was now wondering whether her daughter would ever be normal and whether she would ever find a soulmate. There were times when she broke down and the family found it tough. And there were times when she just let herself go. The deafening silence in the house pierced her peace of mind as the sporadic sounds of support died down.

Sure, three years of hope and perseverance had seen the family through its worst days. They had picked up the scattered pieces but did not attempt to rebuild their old life. Rather, they accepted with a realism compelled by circumstances that Preeti's classic looks were now a part of family lore, that her future was as uncertain and unpredictable as it was earlier secure and predictable. And that her charred existence would remain a lifelong blister.

Preeti's biggest worry was how to complete her third year even as friends dropped in every other day to chatter excitedly about their MCom results or to invite her to their weddings. As she looked at her tired mother, managing her household chores, and her sister struggling to pack in some homework in between, she frowned at her reflection in the mirror, disturbed not so much by her own sight, as by the yawning gap between her and her dreams.