The difficulty in existence

Based on a true story

I have seen this family for 7 years now. The woman in this story forgot to live while she was handling her responsibilities and nurturing her two daughters. Recently, I got to meet her after a long time. She looked weak, feeble and wrecked with mental pain. She doesn’t go out anymore to work. Her day starts and ends in those four walled rooms of her house. She had lost all her glittering smile and life was merely a passage of responsibilities and duties. She is being denied of basic amenities. I will tell you about it through an incident I saw. She bought a washing machine which is now a dumping yard of clothes as she is not allowed by her husband and his family to use it - they say it will consume too much electricity, though the machine is being used by her in-laws to wash clothes.

She was a young vivacious girl who had completed her masters in science with honors. She got married at an early age due to family pressure though she wanted to work. She still accepted this whole-heartedly and stepped into her new life. All went well but destiny had different plans. Her husband and his family started abusing her physically and mentally. He had married her only for dowry reasons. She underwent depression and had to seek medical advice for the same. She divorced her husband and came back to her home. Work was her priority but it wasn’t easy to get a job after a leap. Her family found a divorced man for her. She got married for the second time when all her resistance was unfruitful. She got up with confidence and rejuvenated herself to restart. Life treated her well initially and blessed her with two daughters in the first two and a half years of marriage but somehow in between she had started to see the changing colors of life. Her husband had started to drink when she was pregnant for the second time. After a year of second daughter’s birth, he lost his business in the course of gambling. Her husband and her in-laws began to torture her physically. She left her family many a times and went to her mother’s place but came back again to save the reputation of her parents. Why does a girl always have to take the responsibility of family reputation? Her aspirations and desires - are they of no consequence? What is the fault of children? Swaggered men and their dowry demands will keep on eating women if we don’t do anything about the issue.

Written by Aakshi Kalra