Fearful hope

Sakshi Mishra has been in hiding, ever since she eloped. Despite the physical attacks and online humiliation, she is dreaming big.

- Rekha Dixit

ON HER TWITTER bio, she describes herself as manmarzi girl (self-willed). Sakshi Mishra, 24, who eloped from her politician father’s home in Bareilly in July to marry her sweetheart, Ajitesh Kumar Nayak, 29, a boy from the Banjara (nomadic) community, has needed oodles of her manmarzi to see her through since.

The svelte small-town girl hogged national headlines in July when she released a video on social media. It was a desperate appeal addressed to her father and older brother, Vicky, to keep their goons away from the runaway couple. “I have got married, and I have been running from one town to another to escape these goons,” she says. “Papa, apni soch badlo [Change your mindset, papa]. My husband and his family are humans, not animals…. You do your politics, leave us in peace.” She specially named one Rajiv Rana as her father’s henchman.

A few days later, on July 15, the couple landed up in Allahabad High Court, seeking police protection. There, they were attacked, though that event remains ambiguous. Were the attackers her father’s goons dressed as advocates? Or, was the attack by people who were against a lower caste boy marrying an upper caste girl? Whatever be the case, the court was convinced that the couple and their lawyer needed protection, and that their marriage was valid. They were whisked out through the back gate of the court and have been in hiding ever since. Even her father had to subsequently assure the court that there would be no threat from him.