"Why dosen't she ever smile, mum ?" Kids. Sometimes they so hit the nail on the head. I had been trying from days to figure out what was so strange, so different about the maid. She had been with us for a month now. A shadow like presence, who turned up regularly for work, every morning without fail. That was the second odd thing about her. Previously, every person that i had employed asked for at least three days off in the month. Not this one. Each morning at about nine, i would look up to see her entering my home. Quietly she would go about her work. The only time i saw her animated was when a neighbour asked her if she would clean her home for her, a biggish task because painters had just finished painting her home. She was promised the meagre sum of Rs. fifty, which was quite miserly for such a job. Before i could intervene she had accepted it.
Trying to dissuade her from doing it, she looked me in the eye and said, "Ma'am, if i do this, then my children will have dinner tonight." Nonplussed, i protested that she did take food from my home everyday. The bitterness in her voice was evident when she replied that her man took it all. He usually was voraciously hungry after he returned home drunk. Six hungry children looked on, while he ate not only what she had brought from the various homes where she worked, but also what had been cooked in her own home. If she didn't give it to him, he would thrash her and the children in a murderous rage. When i offered to pay her on a daily basis she refused saying that that helped to pay her monthly rent and sundry small expenses. After finishing the work at my home, she scouted around everyday for menial jobs, so she could take home a daily ration of a little cooking oil and a few vegetables with which she fed her children.
How could a person enter such a trap ? How could she marry such a brute ? Live with him for so long ?
The answers were complex, rooted in evils of culture and society that warped their lives like coils of a snake wrapped around a hapless animal.
She was the fifth in a line of six. (In India, when people don't have anything else, they have children. Future wealth, specially if they are sons. Girls had to be given dowry, which the son 'earned' back when he married.) Since no one was willing to marry a near penniless girl, she was gotten rid of by marriage to a man double her age, a widower. An alcoholic, he relied on her to feed him every night when he returned home after drowning his daily wage in drink. Six children later, she worked night and day to merely feed them. "Why don't you divorce him ?" i asked naively. "Who will then marry my girls ?" was her reply. "Such things are not approved of in our community, madam !" she said.
A few months later, she came to me asking for a loan. "I need it for my daughter's marriage, ma'am." Aghast, i asked "Isn't she only seventeen ?" Her answer was a stony "yes." The groom she told me was a young man, poor himself, but willing to forgo the dowry. "Why ?" i couldn't help being suspicious. As if her legs had given way, she collapsed and sat down weeping copiously. Then came the tirade. "He's a drunkard too, and polio afflicted, but he dosen't want any dowry. That's why ma'am. If i don't marry her off now her fate will be worse than that of a whore. Her father will deflower her in one of his drunken rages, and then nobody will ever marry her." Close to tears myself, i told her "Bring her here. I will employ her, keep her in my home. You don't have to marry her off at all." What she said next was the last straw. "But madam, we are not allowed to do that. My mother-in- law, her family will never agree.Who will marry her? "
I gave her the money, and that was the last i saw of her. Who could save her from the quicksand, the quagmire of her life. Not even Allah himself.
Trying to dissuade her from doing it, she looked me in the eye and said, "Ma'am, if i do this, then my children will have dinner tonight." Nonplussed, i protested that she did take food from my home everyday. The bitterness in her voice was evident when she replied that her man took it all. He usually was voraciously hungry after he returned home drunk. Six hungry children looked on, while he ate not only what she had brought from the various homes where she worked, but also what had been cooked in her own home. If she didn't give it to him, he would thrash her and the children in a murderous rage. When i offered to pay her on a daily basis she refused saying that that helped to pay her monthly rent and sundry small expenses. After finishing the work at my home, she scouted around everyday for menial jobs, so she could take home a daily ration of a little cooking oil and a few vegetables with which she fed her children.
How could a person enter such a trap ? How could she marry such a brute ? Live with him for so long ?
The answers were complex, rooted in evils of culture and society that warped their lives like coils of a snake wrapped around a hapless animal.
She was the fifth in a line of six. (In India, when people don't have anything else, they have children. Future wealth, specially if they are sons. Girls had to be given dowry, which the son 'earned' back when he married.) Since no one was willing to marry a near penniless girl, she was gotten rid of by marriage to a man double her age, a widower. An alcoholic, he relied on her to feed him every night when he returned home after drowning his daily wage in drink. Six children later, she worked night and day to merely feed them. "Why don't you divorce him ?" i asked naively. "Who will then marry my girls ?" was her reply. "Such things are not approved of in our community, madam !" she said.
A few months later, she came to me asking for a loan. "I need it for my daughter's marriage, ma'am." Aghast, i asked "Isn't she only seventeen ?" Her answer was a stony "yes." The groom she told me was a young man, poor himself, but willing to forgo the dowry. "Why ?" i couldn't help being suspicious. As if her legs had given way, she collapsed and sat down weeping copiously. Then came the tirade. "He's a drunkard too, and polio afflicted, but he dosen't want any dowry. That's why ma'am. If i don't marry her off now her fate will be worse than that of a whore. Her father will deflower her in one of his drunken rages, and then nobody will ever marry her." Close to tears myself, i told her "Bring her here. I will employ her, keep her in my home. You don't have to marry her off at all." What she said next was the last straw. "But madam, we are not allowed to do that. My mother-in- law, her family will never agree.Who will marry her? "
I gave her the money, and that was the last i saw of her. Who could save her from the quicksand, the quagmire of her life. Not even Allah himself.
so true..irrespective of whatever anyone did, would still fall short..
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