Would she have survived?
Very discreetly, some women are treated as tools, for convenience. She is at the helm, yet she is at the receiving end. A newly-wed girl from a middle-class business family in Ludhiana came to learn English to qualify the IELTS test. Accompanying her, the husband had then admitted that she is poor in English: she can write but speak only broken English. ‘But she has to do it (for going abroad),’ he had said.
Always a topper in a state education board school where the teachers would dictate the answers to questions of the final exam in advance, she desperately wanted to qualify the IELTS exam to get out of the hostile ecosystem of her new home. Prior to her marriage, she had evaded her husband’s advice of migrating to Australia; she had wanted to live happily with his family.
One day, I found her howling over the phone as she entered the classroom. I asked her to leave the room and continue her personal conversation outside. I presumed she was ill-behaved, but I was wrong.
On the outside, she was angry, inside she was preparing herself for the worst. I thought that the moment she returns, I will occupy her in studies. Instead, she muttered, ‘I will end my life.’
The mother-in-law, as usual, wanted her to work and behave according to ‘family rules’ and her husband wanted her to be happy, but with certain conditions. When she tried to fall back on her mother for support, she too advised her to do whatever her husband and in-laws desired.
She had no clue as to what marriage seeks out of a girl-turned-woman and about the stray clouds of expectations and uncertainty that keep hovering, waiting to pour suddenly. My heart choked. Do women still have to lead the lives of others’ choices, and at such a young age when freedom helps evolve a person into a personality, I pondered.
Nonetheless, I pestered her not to take any drastic step, asked her to be calm for the moment and shared my thoughtfulness on marital bliss.
And then, there was the corona lockdown. Hurriedly, the police got the office premises vacated. I advocated resilience as I parted from her. I have no clue of her since then.
The lockdown has affected everyone’s life in some way or the other. Time has paused, not literally though. It has given us the time for introspection, to undo the wrongs, to make do with less, to give our family and society their due.
Would things have changed for this pretty, young, energetic girl? Would she have paused to think, to find ways not to suffer? Would her family members have reconsidered their attitude towards her, I wonder!
