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Friday, August 26, 2016

The Circle of life



"Stop Please, I beg you. Its hurting" Sheila was crying on top of her lungs and begging her husband Viren to stop beating him.But, there was no pity in Virens eyes. they seemed to be blood thirsty and would not stop till his body was tired.

After about an hour of beating ,strangling and using almost all the equipment in the house to facilitate the beatings and sheila's momentary and failed attempt to run outside the house and seek help from the deaf neighbors.It finally stopped.




There was sheer silence in the house hold now. The daily chores had started already and it seemed as if nothing had happened a while ago. The kids were tugged to their grandmothers chest mistaking them for their mothers milk filled bosom. before they could find out the difference and begin squealing, the grandmother thrust the malnourished and naked bodies in the lap of their mother .

Sheila is woken up from her stupor and finds her children in her lap looking hungry as ever. after the beatings,she had pulled herself to the farthest corner of the house and went into a deep trance. a place she usually went to after getting physically abused by her husband. her head was bleeding and hands were swollen. there were red marks all over her body. how much she wished she could die after one of her beatings so that this pain could go forever. but Viren beat her only to the last possible limit . He was that cruel.

She looked at her two children, A son and daughter, who were now happily filling their stomachs with the nutritious mother's milk and tried to smile.they were her only piece of happiness in this hell called home.she knew what would happen to them if she died. Viren was already in the process of looking out for another bride who could give him the new love he desired. She knew what was her future, yet could not do anything about it. she had to live for her children.

what did she do to deserve this life? Uneducated as she was, she blamed it to her past life sins. She got up thinking she would work harder to change herself to the way her husband wants and maybe this beating would stop. She was brought up  listening to her mother that the life of a woman lies in the foot of her husband. She has to do whatever he says and surrender to all his wishes. There is no 'what a wife wants' in this society. At that age she would not believe to these things but after getting married, right from the painful first night to every beating she got for all her mistakes or rather for everything she did, there was no way not to believe in what her mother had told her.

she wanted to change this but she did not know how and had adjusted to her life. Her only satisfaction was when she would hear her friend from neighborhood crying out in pain when her husband beat her. she was not alone is what she felt.but she would also hear her friends mother-in-law sometimes coming in between and after the beating sympathizing with her Daughter-in-law. nevertheless, she could never stop her son from beating.

Sheila stood up from her isolation and finally went inside the house to confront her mother-in-law. why did she never came  to her rescue? even when she knows that Viren beats her out of no fault of hers. she wanted to know why she never said a word of love and pity and showed some concern. OK ,even if she was not her own mother, but in the end she was a woman. a woman cannot see other woman in pain.
In front of her mother-in-law, she stood, waiting for an answer.An answer which made all her curiosity vanish in thin air.An answer which bought a faint smile to her face, a smile that made her realize what she she would be in future. maybe that is the circle of life.


"Even I was beaten black and blue from your father-in-law when I was your age. Don't worry, your turn to watch will also come."






1 comment:

  1. very painful plight of women still in the enclosures...you 've put it well but it stirs the soul, are the women born to meet this fate :(

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