Let it out.

I saw this post at IHM’s today and I knew I had to post. October is Domestic Violence Awareness month and even though it is almost coming to a close, I have to have my 2 cents on the issue. I have seen domestic violence from quarters close enough to understand the plight of the victim. Two parallel stories of women from different backgrounds, who handled their abusers in different ways, and who are now leading similarly happy lives.

One is a maid who was married to a man 10 years her senior, and who used to drink and come back home ready to thrash the living daylights out of her.Initially she thought it was because he was drunk, and so she stopped giving him money to drink(he did not work, but demanded money from her), that made him more angry and he started beating her when he was not drunk. They had 3 children in quick succession and she thought he would change now. But he only got angrier and more useless with each passing day. That made her realise he would never change, and she threw him out of the house and threatened to kill him if he came back or tried to get in touch with her again. Now her oldest is married and happy, her 2nd one is a petty contractor who is earning a decent wage and is independent, and her youngest managed to secure a seat in college and is studying hard so that he gets a job and relieves his  mother from having to work in houses as a maid to earn a  living. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t thrown him out!

Another woman, a relative, whose marriage was ‘arranged’ to the oldest son of a well-to-do couple. The groom in question had no job, whereas all his siblings had one. The match was approved because he was from a wealthy family and they all lived in the same building(in separate apartments) and her parents thought she would be happy and wouldn’t need to work. Right from day one he started taunting her about small things. How she brought no dowry(his parents did not ask for one, and her parents weren’t wealthy enough to provide), how she has an attitude because she thinks she is smarter than him(she WAS smarter than him), how she is not good looking,  how she cannot cook ‘his’ style food etc. These taunts became insults in time, and these insults transformed into slaps and burns. She came home to her parents for festivals etc, but never uttered a peep about what was going on. She thought it was all her karma and she had to bear it all and it will go away when she has children. She had a son and a daughter, and her husband started abusing them as well. All these things were kept under wraps, until her daughter(who is my age) told me while playing how her father beats them everyday and sometimes keeps her mother locked in the bathroom. I promptly let my parents know this. Swift actions were taken, and the mother and her children were brought back to her parents’ house and legal action was initiated against the husband. The woman, all this while, maintained that she wanted to go back o her husband, and no amount of explaining to her helped. As luck would have it, the husband, in a fit of temper and madness, got himself involved in a situation that led to his death, and the kids breathed a sigh of relief. They had never been cared for by their father, and had no emotional attachment towards him. Today, the kids are all grown up, and have kids of their own, and they love their families to bits. The mother is independent and self-sufficient, and is living a full life. If the little girl hadn’t told me, and if I hadnt spilled it to my parents, god knows how much longer the abuse would have continued, and to what end.

It only takes one person to know that you are a victim, to stop the abuse. It takes that one phone call, that one message, that one meeting to talk to someone you trust, to get out of an abusive relationship. And it only takes one question from neighbors and concerned people, to stop the abuser. There are a lot of resources on the internet to help people in need. Please visit http://dvam.vawnet.org/tips.php for information on how and where to report abuse.