Haunted homes
“Come back idiot or I will kill you. I already have your pathetic excuse for a father to drive me insane, I will not tolerate you”, with every word Meena grew more frustrated. Meanwhile, Santosh ran with the wind in his underwear down the river that flows along with his house, on a chilled November Sunday morning. Meena knew his father will be home soon and all the noises would only make him angrier at her, which she didn’t want him to be today. Today, she wanted nothing driving her husband to hit her or abuse her with words that still don’t sound normal even after hearing them every day for the last 7 years. When Prakash, her husband came home after spending his whole night at his brother’s place, she served him with parathas she knew he likes. Just one morsel went down his throat when Santosh came back with a bleeding knee and apologetic eyes as he was aware of what will follow. What Meena wanted to tell her husband was nowhere on her mind anymore as she charged at Santosh and gave his tear-soaked cheek, a tight slap. “I told you you’d get hurt and I don’t have time to take care of you only anymore, I am tired of going to the forest to collect woods, and with all the cooking, cleaning, and you!”, she forced herself to not hit him again. “You have to take care of yourself Kaka because you see -”, she couldn’t hear anything for a moment as she held her face and felt her left cheek flushed. “I ask one thing, just one thing from you scoundrels and you cannot even give me that. I’ll tell you what you get for not letting your man eat in peace”, and before she could tell him she was pregnant, he took his chappal in his hand and went on to teach the mother of his kids a lesson.
I never needed to imagine a fictional trauma to draw a picture of what life is for women in this country, and even worse for those living in rural India. Patriarchy has always been the most normalized weapon in our culture, so much so that women nurture it more than men. Peeking inside the homes of women who work to the women who are homemakers, I found haunting stories of male dominance that grow as creepers on their walls. The Meenas, Rekhas, Manjus, and so many women around us are carrying the seed of this male supremacy in their wombs and we see them, just don’t recognize them. We play a major role in validating the illegitimate child of this structural bigotry, which grows on to hold its power over our lives.
With the splurge in domestic violence cases in India during the pandemic lockdown, we are not just looking at physical violence but the systematical tradition of not considering women as equals that we have allowed. When our fathers say that they are progressive as they allow us to work, to marry, to be something, we sanction this madness with gratitude. And we are told by our mothers to be grateful as your father does not beat you, we feel obliged to ‘look at it as a positive thing’. Our stories matter, our choices matter, and above all what matters is our sense of self-worth, which is ridiculed by those around us every time we dare to choose.
Meena lived in the house that was haunted by her mother’s advice, father’s choice, husband’s control, and son’s anger before succumbing to her injuries.