on her way to prison..

When the verdict on her ongoing case is declared or the case dismissed late this month, Rejula will not shed tears. She has been shedding them for the past five years. The case, that has so far been so painful for her, was filed against her in 2006 when the man with whom she shared her accommodation absconded.

It subsequently transpired that he was wanted by the police for the illegal Internet phone business he was running using the landline at the flat - which was in Rejula's name. Fifty-four-year-old Rejula, who signed as the guarantor for the man to enable him to get his passport from his sponsor, is now facing charges, and a destiny she almost, however unintentionally, wrote for herself.

I'm ready to go to prison", Rejula told the Friday Times, breaking down in tears as she unfolded her life story. A widow for many years who worked as a lab technician for 24 years, Rejula struggled throughout much of her life to up bring her now employed son and her student daughter.

With no savings left after working 14 years in Kuwait and 10 years in Saudi, she is now jobless. As if this weren't enough, she's heard that the young Indian fraudster who she blames for her misery has been spreading slanderous lies about her back home which makes her nights all the more sleepless.

It's a complicated story. The loops and layers in her life story are so heavily tangled that one wonders how she manages in the maze that she is trapped in. I asked her why she signed as the guarantor for a man she knew had no straight record. "Because I trusted him," she answered.

Prior to all this taking place, she explained, her children had stayed at the man's house back in India as paying guests. On another occasion, while she was holidaying back home, he had helped her ageing mother by taking her to hospital for treatment. So, she explains, there was great trust between them until subsequent events completely destroyed it and caused a chasm between them.

Before getting his passport back from his sponsors and departing Kuwait, Rejula goes on, he led her to believe that he would certainly be returning. After leaving Kuwait, however, he disappeared off the radar and she has been unable to contact him. While Rejula could contact her son in India to ask him to set about tracing the former friend, she vehemently opposes this idea: "I don't want my children to undergo any court procedures," she insists.

By April, Rejula said, she hopes that the long court procedure and her suffering over her former friendship will come to end, one way or the other: "I'm prepared for the worst - a jail term - but I just want this to end," she states.
I asked Rejula why she had chosen to tell her story in the media, which could simply bring her fresh condemnation.

She answered, "Because I want to warn people that there are traps everywhere and that if you're not careful you'll end up victimized." Whether Rejula was an accidental victim or simply made poor choices is a question left unanswered.

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