Clipped wings

While I was throwing my teen tantrums, fighting with my father to let me have an expensive pair of boots and ignoring my mother's warnings about my 'cool' boyfriend, another life was quietly evolving under our roof. I pitied her sometimes for working as a house help at the tender age of 12. We sometimes chatted as she swept the floor of my room and she looked wonder-eyed at my books while I chewed on my pen carelessly. She was awed by me, my clothes, my trinkets, my school uniform. I casually talked to her in my free time, smiled when she paid me a compliment and gave away my old dresses, made redundant by my boredom, to her.
No, it would not be fair to me if I say I felt superior to her. I liked her and thought she was a very sweet girl. It's just that I was too preoccupied with my upper-middle class life and quest for my liberty to say and do and live as I pleased to notice how free I actually was and how helplessly bound to her fate and her living conditions she was.
Her name was Sumita. Her family lived in extremely poor conditions. Her father was the operator of one merry-go-round that he travelled with in villages and fairs. Her mother also worked as a maidservant in some houses. Between them, they could barely feed and clothe themselves and their three children. Sometimes, I later learnt, the breakfast she had at our house would be Sumita's only meal during the day.
I now remember her liquid eyes, smiling through the adversity. She was always happy, cheerful. I used to get bogged down and debated or rebelled against a teacher's disciplinary strategies or my parents' orders or being told to behave in a certain way because I am a girl. Yes, I have hated adhering to strictures always. But I now realise, I should have been fighting her battles instead of selfishly asking for more leeway when I already had a lot of it.
When she turned 13, her mother announced to us that Sumita could not work at our house any longer. I was happy. I thought the girl would finally get a break. By that time, I was going to college and I had become even more resistant to any form of authority. Sumita, on the other hand, had become meeker, her smile still there, but with a shadow of sadness. Coming back to her mother, she came and announced that she was getting Sumita married. I was shocked, even more so when I was told that the groom was forty years old and had a wife and a kid.
This is an average story with most poor families in India. But I guess I had thought that Sumita and her folks were 'city' people and would not opt for child marriage. I was acting like the "if they don't have bread let them have cake" queen. They were too poor to take care of Sumita for a few more years and this marriage would mean food and clothes for her. Even Sumita seemed to have acceded. I tried reasoning with her and her mother. I tried rebelling with my parents, as if they had a right over Sumita. Actually, my parents also tried their bit. The result was Sumita was not allowed to come to our house from the next day.
But she did return after a month for a brief period. This marriage had collapsed because the dowry was unreasonable. Sumita's mother warned her not to speak with me too much in fear of me putting ideas into her head. I think she knew her poverty too well to get ideas any way. Some time later, there was another marriage proposal, this time from a 42-year-old bachelor. Dowry was arranged. Sumita went away, resigned to her fate.
I have not seen her since. Now I look back and regret that I never did anything for her, so full I was of myself.