Thursday 26 December 2013

The year that went by...

Me and my friend have this ritual every new year. We welcome the new year by analyzing the year that passed. This year has been a very happening year in my life. It has quite turned my life in many ways. Sadly, I wont be sharing this ritual with my friend this year.

I welcomed the new year with hopes and happiness but my happiness was rather short lived. My new year started with a summons to the court where my husband had filed for the dissolution of our marriage. For having put up with his abuse and abandonment I thought I at least deserved an explanation. I wondered why it even bothered me that he had abandoned me, when it was in many ways a blessing in disguise. I have never felt as helpless and hopeless as I have felt in this entire year. There are so many things that I have come to hate in this one year and a few things where my pride has dissolved. I used to pride myself on being a girl; I really cannot understand where this came from because now I know how much of a disadvantage I have been in for being a girl. Although its my H who deserted me, I have become the one who's become answerable to all and sundry. From the laundry man to the lawyer, from the neighbor next door to relatives across the globe everyone's curious on what I did wrong. Oh come on, she's the wife so she must be wrong. A woman can win it all but her H abandoned her. She surely did not have enough in her to win. This must be the only time a woman or her prowess is glorified beyond what is actually true. And no, these are not those dumb, gossip loving people. They are these educated, broad minded people of today who want to find solutions!!! Solutions my foot!!! If it was all so simple. All the pretense in the world cannot hide this sadistic hunger. And here I was proudly proclaiming that I was proud to be a girl. Maybe I hadn’t seen the world. I was also a diehard patriotic, I wondered why people left our country and never wanted to come back. I think I had only begun to understand the reasons with the Nirbhaya tragedy. This is a country full of hypocrites with utter disrespect for women. I should know cos I have experienced it myself. My husband and in-laws were abusive to me and how easy it was for them to get away with all of it. For all the hype and hooplah about Indian laws favoring women, they must not have lost a second's sleep. All you need is some bribe and you can get away with just about anything here. Want to inflict maximum damage on a woman? Oh! the Indian legal system is all you need. Just keep the cases dragging for years. They do not mind wasting lakhs and lakhs of rupees on lawyer’s fees and court fees but they just cannot settle things and get done with. To hell with your money. Why would anyone want to even come back to this country where women are nothing more than toys, where she has to fight for even the right to simply live and breathe, leave alone live in peace. And here we are, proud of having a mars mission when a sizeable portion of half its population live in fear and die a million deaths everyday at the hands of its culture, legal system, police forces and society. Shame on us really!! They say we worship women in form of goddesses. I think we only worship greed - greed for money and strength which are granted by goddesses. If it wasn’t Lakshmi who granted wealth, I wonder if she would even exist for our society. We blog, we argue, we discuss yet nothing changes. People raise noises about women empowerment, yet do not bat an eyelid while ill treating their maid or defining a woman by her relationships. Definitely, we do not practice what we preach. Anyways having experienced this bad world first hand, I have definitely learnt a whole lot of valuable lessons.

Well an year is quite a long stretch of time and it cant be all bad, can it be? There have been some happy experiences that I have had too. I have found a friend - halfway across the globe and in a manner I least expected. Someone who understands my issues just as well as I do and constantly keeps me positive. My best friend got married to her long time boyfriend and moved continents to happily settle in with her new husband. Its time for me to take a backseat in her life and so will my new year ritual. I have been writing this blog and have read some exceptionally positive ones that have kept me sane. In this adversity I have found some new friends - people with similar problems who are willing to help even though they do not know you. More than anything I have discovered my resilience - I may have been through hell but I have survived - with a lot of help from expected and unexpected quarters. I was a mess when the year started, I can still remember how much I had cried in fear of having to face the barrage of lies that my H was throwing at me in the court, yet today I have grown into this person who can say I have to deal with this, so deal I will. And I have done this while keeping my routine intact. Yes there are days of unprecedented gloom but I have hung on. Hope is something that I am still working on installing into myself but that's something that Ill hopefully achieve this year ;-) After all the world is beckoning towards a new start.

Happy new year!!!

8 comments:

  1. Hi Danita,
    I found your blog through another post at thechangeblog, and after reading your story, felt compelled to follow the link and read here. Just wanted to let you know that I feel compassion towards your situation and send warm hugs. I am Russian/American, but was in a relationship and later engaged to an Indian whose parents wanted him in a socially acceptable arranged marriage with another woman, so I became quite intimate with some of the issues you write about. Anyhow, I wish you the best and admire your optimism and courage!

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  2. Also... in your original note on thechangeblog, you asked if people do really get a second lucky chance.
    My answer is yes, although it doesn't come all at once, and you may not recognize it as it happens. Also, it will happen many times. There are always new beginnings, new experiences, new connections that you will find as you move through life. The key is to just keep moving and doing, even if that means very slowly.
    For the record, I did not end up staying with the man from India that I was engaged with. After a lot of abuse, he ended up leaving me, and I was absolutely devastated and went into a two year long very deep and painful depression and anxiety filled time where I attempted suicide, was not able to hold a job, or even eat properly. Today though, after lots of work, I am in a lovely relationship, working at a job that I like, and able to keep my head above water. All of these changes did not happen in a day, a month or even a year. They are gradual, and I still struggle, and I believe I always will, but now I know how to deal with it after a lot of practice. So yes, you can heal. It will be OK, and there are still MANY good things to come!

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  3. Thankyou so much Tahata.. Ur words do fill me with courage. I can understand how difficult it must be for anyone to go through this whole parental abuse cos I have seen it all my life as, but for someone who hasnt seen this can be extremely shocking and damaging!! Kudos to you that you got away and are in a better place today. I doing a lot of new things and keeping myself occupied and that seems to be helping as I now have lesser time to worry.
    Havent been able to read your blog in full but will do it soon..
    Thanku and take care :)

    Regards,
    Danita.

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  4. Hi Danita. I'm also an Indian woman who was deserted by her husband in the US. At the time, I was clinically depressed, unable to work legally in the US and entirely dependent on my husband in every respect.
    I was on a dependent spouse's visa in the US and gradually slipped into clinical depression because of a lack of support system and the regular in-law issues that most Indian women do battle with.
    I completely understand what you are going through. Even now, after so many years, people assume that I was at fault. I was the wife after all, and the responsibility of keeping the marriage together is always the wife's.
    Just yesterday, I met my maternal grandmother after 8 years; only to be told that it was my job as a woman to keep the husband happy; that men had egos that needed massaging and that the only way to win a husband's love was by surrendering completely to him; body, mind and soul.
    That sounds a lot like slavery, but that's the conventional definition of marriage in India.
    Chin up and lots of hugs and empathy.

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    Replies
    1. Thanku A :) I also do not understand why a marriage becomes more important than the life of a girl. My H has the guts to proclaim in the court that do whatever u want, ur life is gone but I am a guy and I can do watever I want while the world looks on and gives me advice on how I should be a good wife and be a slave. In many ways him deserting me has made me stronger, something that I had lost during my marriage. So in one way mayb we should thank our H's for desrting us and leaving us with no option but to get up and move on.
      Hugs to u too :)

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  5. Hi sweetie, dint get a chance to visit your blog!! finally getting some time for all these activities. hope you are feeling well now, it must be hard going through this.. hope it get over as soon as possible so that you can start over and be happy once more.. till then take care dear

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    Replies
    1. Thanks AIG!! How have you been? Saw your post on "helping in household chores". Hope this attitude changes not just in men but also amongst women who pride on the help they get from their husbands. Take care too :)

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