'Woe'mania! - Why Being Born As A Woman In India Comes With A Heavy Cost

'Madame ji, aaj lunch mein kya tha? Chickkan Curry? Meri beti ko Chikkan bahut pasand hai. Kaash mein ek dabba le jaati uske liye. Lekin kya karoon contractor logon ka khaana kooch khaas nahin banta yahan'.

I met Latha in the freezing locker rooms of one of my past hotels. She was allocated the restrooms and bunkers of our changing area as a chambermaid and was also responsible for maintaining the cleanliness and upkeep of the managers' cabins. She helped me quickly drape my sari in the most immaculate fashion every Monday. The sari-draping session came to an end exactly ten minutes before our morning meeting started, so that I could have some time in hand for rechecking on my make-up and hairdo along with the important documents that I had to carry for the briefing of the team. Latha did me the same favor every week after week, sometimes even when I didn't ask for it. Her diligence and sincerity appealed me and I left no stone unturned to protect her from the possible tongue-lashings of her bummed out boss who often blew her in pieces with choicest expletives. 

Laborers like Latha worked as maids, caddy boys or florists in the hotel but were not employed by us. They were hired contractually, on a third party settlement that paid them a peanut wage. Even the meals they were served in the cafeteria were discriminated from ours as there was a multitude of such contractors and their table d'hote never included anything better than a kaali daal, roti and aloo gobi ki sabji. 

Latha came from the slums of Rajender Nagar, Bangalore, and her household was run (not literally, though) by the man in her life with whom she decided to elope in an impregnated state more than a decade back to the Northern part of the country. Their marriage was never approved by Latha's Brahmin parents who lived hand to mouth. And Satbir, Latha's spouse, was a bellicose Gujjar jaat. 

We keep hearing of such inter cast/state marriages, but what  we tend to shut our eyes to is the darker side of those love tales. Latha, when I came to know her, was the sole bread earner for her family - each member having their own set of limitations. Her husband, a heavy alcoholic, was given his notice by the textile company where he had been serving as a vendor for eight years. His stagnation soon slipped him into drug addiction, gambling, brawl over anything and everything which only picked up the speed by his regular visits to the brothel and beating Latha black and blue afterwards. As she squirmed hither and thither across the floor in severe cramp down below her abdomen, the fiend went off with her purse like a flash to quench his thirst, by hitting the bottle further and washing it down until dawn. 

Her son, a fifteen year old school dropout, was no different from his douche bag father. He was allegedly convicted of a rape on a ten year old girl from their locality. He was left to nothing else other than whiling away his time fuming and fretting over their destitute and a hard earned square meal that the poor and distraught mother managed from giving her all to the hotel and mopping up its floor. How could she not bear up all the exertion and the pain of occasional bashing in her office? She had to get money by hook or by crook, for the regular medicines in order to cure her four year old girl's Pertussis (Whooping Cough). 

That Monday morning, the most horrific of all,  I saw Latha's face swollen up with little bruise marks all over her cheek due to sharp slaps and also, both her wrists had disjointed scalds which looked like cigarette burns to me. She still dragged herself to work, perhaps to go to the bitter end of her present, that she was trying to fix desperately for her daughter. The only reason behind her survival. Her only ray of hope.  

On asking her - " Why don't you lodge a complaint against Satbir  for domestic violence?'' she looked at me in a manner as if she didn't even expect me to react that way - ''Madame, main use nahin chhod sakti. Maine mere ma baap ki nahin suni. Abhi to poori zindagi sazaa bhoogatni paregi.'' She mumbled in arrant agony. 

I was baffled to realize how cursed and downcast a woman is made to feel in a country that claims to corroborate human freedom and right to equality, presuming that she has refused to adhere by those self-crafted societal norms, which are very effortlessly superimposed on her by her family and relatives to suit their own convenience. 

A survey has revealed, that since the year 2003, an estimated figure of 50,703, of women reporting cases of marital abuse, has gone up to 118,866 in 2013, which indicates a rise of 134% over ten years. Despite getting started with such campaigns and government laws implemented for the cause of protecting victims against violence behind closed doors, there's always a Latha found who's ready to succumb to her suffering instead of speaking up. For every woman, who's literate, financially independent, aware of her rights, there is at least one Latha who chooses to sink in silence. It is probably somewhere ingrained within the constitution of women, and the way they are created - Most of them prefer not to talk to friends and colleagues if they are being abused by their husband's family. It somehow doesn't go down well with them to accept that they are victimized by none other than their consorts. 

The other day  I tuned on to my virtual savior - NDTV live, to keep myself updated with the current happenings on recently exposed self-styled God woman 'Radhe Guru Maa' of our nation. Goes without saying, her self-proclamation of a reincarnated avatar of the deity Durga/Sherawali has been quite a jocular spoof off late. The thirty two year old bride who has filed a case of dowry and physical as well as mental harassment against 'Maa' for instigating her in laws to torment her until the family is paid up the entire amount is nothing but the manifestations of our highly misogynic and corrupt social system where a retinue of the bhakts typically confined in a patriarchal purview has just received the shock of their lives to see their 'Maa' grooving lusciously to Bollywood music in a skimpy red mini-skirt. It is the very notion that she is a mere asexual idol to be worshipped and any of her activity which might possibly have sexual undertones reduces her to the image of a whore, is symptomatic of our hurdles to reconcile with any sort of transgression. While India continues to remain a weird land of tradition and religion, these self-righteous God men and women like Radhe Maa and Asaram Bapu ceaselessly hold the fort sitting fresh-faced and showered with tons of flowers by their devotees. Their blind disciples subject their daughter-in-laws to the whims and fancies of these maas and paas, while their sardonic embodiments of Divine prowess and beautification reign supreme in its prophecy of those ominous gloomy billows, with kicks and blows - 'Tu aurat hai, tera janam hua hai sehan karne ke liye.'  That's how they stay 'pure' and 'pais'(Pious) in the true sense of the terms. And the rest becomes history.

One of the extensive family surveys have successfully divulged that 54% of men and 51% of women subscribe to the idea that - physical scuffle between husband and  wife is normal and should rather be treated as a prelude to a stronger relationship. However, I could never look at it as justified, (as even many court appointed mediators would believe so) - that a little bit of adjustment and compromise calls for getting beaten up by one's partner as a penance for making a mistake. It is immensely disturbing for me to have known women with considerable amount of education and self-respect yielding to advices of ignoring, accepting and indulging in maltreatment, stemming from reasons like neglecting home or children, differing in opinion with their in-laws and most insanely, something as insignificant as putting less or more spice in the lunch. 

I remember another case of a Muslim girl, whom I met during my aviation training days in Kolkata. The year was 2005, and I, fresh from college, was bubbling with my feminist agendas those days. My new found obsession with 'Fantomina; or Love in a Maze', by Eliza Haywood, and its erotic plot revolving around its female protagonist, was the ultimate victory of a liberalized woman in my eyes, and a complete turnaround of the power equilibrium with the opposite gender only to give way to her sexual desire or amour. 

Nazia reminds me of the good old times we spent together, frolicking over the weekends in City Center, strolling in and around Kwality street of Salt Lake's BE Block, and ordering Lamb Biriyani from 'Rahmania' in secret for a late dinner, waiting to salivate with raita and phirni at the end, within the delicious imprisonment of our two-seater room, which hardly allowed the two of us the space to walk around at the same time, yet came as a great deal of fun.

That was just the joviality thrown in good measure. But every coin has two sides. It was only three days into her arranged marriage when she was first beaten up. She was financially self-sufficient by then, working in one of the reputed call-centers and perusing her MBA in Marketing simultaneously.

''He hit me with his belt. I fell on the bed, injured badly. I sobbed the entire night, but he didn't bother to look back at my condition and say a sorry,'' she grieved.

What I knew already was the established fact that domestic violence has rarely been a unique phenomena in India, keeping in mind its hideously male-dominated milieu. But what distinguishes our 'mahan' Bharat from the rest of the planet is the culture of silence that surrounds and vitiates the gender equalization, every time a crime takes place within the four walls. When Nazia sought help from her mother, the response disillusioned her and fetched her scanty sympathy. ''I shared with my mum what I had been going through, and also the source of it. My honest confession to my shohar on the wedding night that I am not a virgin. I had sex with my ex boyfriend before this alliance was found,'' she wept. That trepidation to disclose her experience, the hesitation to come face to face with her so called 'guilt', that simpering coyness that has been injected deep inside her veins ever since she gathered her sense of understanding the ethical and moral values - all confronted, challenged and lambasted her open admittance that she gave in to recognizing, honoring and satisfying some of the most basic, human, and natural instincts in the past. The issue of losing one's chastity willfully before entering the wedlock has been in Indian speculation for long. The freedom of choice, the overwhelming unison of one's self with one's very inner, primal and suppressed emotions disregarding the prescribed standards of a 'good Indian woman'  has been in question and a subject of intense excoriation for ages. Nazia was no exception, as for the husband, her candidness and integrity was of less importance over learning that a portion of her well preserved asset of maidenhood was uncovered by someone else way before she took on the oath of staying loyal to him. The failure of our society  is as a microcosmic representation of singularly conservative and unruly power structure, that doesn't permit any 'good' and 'clean' girl to emerge as a metaphor of female desire who can unhesitatingly surpass the peripheries of a duty bound conjugal relation, unleashing her pleasurable side to the man of her interest, instead of remaining a mare object to reproduce offspring. It is nothing new for us to be preached, sermonized, and reminded of the very utterance of sex before marriage as a taboo, probably the filthiest thing one can ever imagine of. Nazia was a scapegoat of those fearful repercussions born out from her error of living a little, that the society  deems as forbidden and felonious. 

As tears rolled down Nazia'a face, she murmured in despair, ''There was a point in time when I showed my mum the bruises on my back, I confided in her that my husband forced himself upon me repetitively as a penalty of not letting him slay my virginity at first.'' ''What did she say?'' I inquired in gushing inquisitiveness. ''You need to understand the importance of this marriage and do whatever it takes to convince him that it was a blunder on your part. Try to simply work this teething problem out,'' she responded. 

It was possibly this apprehension of social stigma that also provided my roomy the strength, to disbelieve - all that was actually getting too much to put up with. She chose seclusion over separation, reticence over  voicing herself, only to find a happy medium which led her to gradual depression, from a bright and chirpy MBA student, to a door mat eventually, who was turning almost into a vegetable during those last few days when I heard from her for the final time. She couldn't shrug off the deep-seated bigotry within her - that the remote possibilities of a divorce or remarriage might also bring forth a threat of pillory for herself and a permanent ignominy for her Maulvi father.  

One of the evenings, sitting on the balcony of our new house, the wind chimes bring about my uncanny appetite for some detective derivative (You bet that Mr. Sherlock Holmes). My hands are on the emotionally perturbing book 'Aarushi' by Avirook Sen. The murder of Aarushi Talwar had stormed the whole nation primarily because it could have happened to any of us - any dazzling teenager like Aarushi and any well to do and doting parents like hers. Another aspect of this mysterious death of Aarushi that initiated multiple probing and raised several brows was over Nupur Talwar's stoic stance and stiff upper lip which we are simply not accustomed to. Apparently everyone assumed the parents to be the perpetrators as the mother was seen unusually in control of her (un)motherly emotions and remained composed. How can a mother who has lost her child prematurely in a brutal homicide stay so calm without the display of slightest remorse? Does the Mother India ever behave this way? Where are those teary eyes whipped up in glycerin and anguish? In the meantime, what we deliberately turned a blind eye to is our flexibility to give out that benefit of doubt to Nupur, that she,  in all likelihood didn't have any option left but to hold herself strong while her husband was fallen apart to all his intents and purposes. For us, it rationally comes under the criterion of an evil mother, a stone-hearted woman, whose dry eyes and sordid coldness pretty much eases out our task of concluding and declaring who the guilty is. Voila! Aam janta, aam khasiyat.  

  ''I cannot tolerate this. This is a Pakistani woman who is an ISI agent, and she is stalking my husband. And you know how men are. He is flattered by the attention,'' - a disturbing tweet from an effervescent businesswoman and wife of former union minister, was put down roots  as the winter tide of 2014 hit the New Delhi capital region. Shashi Tharoor's latest and much talked about oration on British Rule at Oxford just flashed back  how before long the dust around the controversy of our honorable diplomat's allegedly illicit love affair with Pakistani journalist Meher Tarar could settle, his dismayed wife Sunanda Pushkar's dead body was found in an extravagant hotel in New Delhi. A woman of substance, who lived life on her own terms, possibly couldn't soldier on the plight of watching her mentally estranged other half hatching a divorce from her. Her death has been a subject of several inquests and was later explained as due to some 'sudden' and 'unnatural' causes. What showcases Sunanda, the dispirited wife of one of the most charismatic yet embroiled in more than one scandal politicians of India is however, intriguing in various ways. It is symbolic of every compeering Indian woman as a cursed Sita who haplessly flutters her wings within her line of demarcation until those trials and tribulations thoroughly rob her off all fortitude. Sunanda, at least doesn't appear alienated  from rest of her sisters of the same ethnic background, who sail in the same boat with her day in and day out. Many other mediocre wives who share a similar misery like that of Sunanda's, of being stabbed in the back only unveils something sinister about the fate of every Indian woman tingling in pride behind all those designer accessories and layers of maquillage. Nevertheless, masquerades of such kinds, more often than not, do not continue for too long. Some women sweep through at the outset, by the blessing of a close confidant like Nalini Singh, who still stands as the last witness to record and voice that bone of dissonance between Tharoor and Pushkar. Some aren't that lucky to be heard of, and go weak in their knees while there is nobody to hold them together. Some ostensibly race for a power revival as well as reversal, engaging in an equally complex game of self comforting promiscuity. As they seek for some amatory escapades with those toy boys in a vengeful spree, society in no time ostracizes them as deplorable and scarred for life. And their fall is customarily inaudible, tremulous on the outside. One fine day our Amazon's innermost volcano erupts, and then the author's countenance is almost cathartic. She unmasks herself with least ambiguity, and the universal woman in question pushes the envelope by postulating her eternal quest for justice, an unrelenting combat for her optimum supremacy. So, the battle for triumph goes on. Triumph over plenitude of what we know as 'woemania'.