More to go...

I always believe and remind my son that the divorce was between a husband and wife and his parents will still stand together for all his needs. I kept trying to cover-up for all the short-falls his father continued doing even at this stage of life. I still ensured to remind his father on how to be a good father and how to build their relation. It is a sad truth that it never came from his heart.

I always believed in incorporating all family values in him. That day, as we were checking in for our return flight, I dialled his paternal grandmother for him to talk to her. She never had much to talk. It was always a formality conversation with her unless there was something that she had to be bitter about. Their conversation didn’t last long, as usual, my son said his regular Hi – How r u -  questions and then heard him saying SHE IS HERE. I WILL ASK HER TO CALL YOU.

As we crossed security, he mentioned that his grandmother wanted to speak to me and I should call her back. Though, I always considered her as my mother, somehow she could never do that. For sure, I knew this was where her son got his selfish characteristics. Hence, I knew well that a conversation with her would never be pleasant. Still, not wanting my son to feel bad, I made the call at the boarding gates. My heart was beating fast.

Hello…

Hello Amma.

Ohhhhhhh, Madammm… Why are you going so fast. Why are you not staying in that house? You took that house in your name, aaaaalllll for yourself? Why don’t you stay there for many days? You have already done the exorcism to remove the spirit from your life…

What Spirit, Amma! [It hurt, knowing the spirit she meant was my husband or should I say ex-husband].

Why don’t you stay there for many days?

No Amma, I have things to be done…

You have terminated your partner from his job. You can live in that house all for yourself. You don’t have to bother about him anymore. You got the house in your name. Although it was always in your name. Still. You should have stayed long. Now the boy who I got after praying hard to get a boy child has become an orphan. He lost his father and his mother. I wanted him for my things. But now, I don’t need him anymore.

She had a few more harshness to spit and then the call got disconnected from the other end with a Thank you Madam.

I didn’t expect anything better. I always knew that thru this process, her only worry was the losing of the house that I had built on bank loans all around me. During the bargain, his son wanted a share of the house with ZERO obligations on the loan that I had to pay for next 20years. I was fine to give off the house as a whole with no compensation for me if he was ready to take up the loan responsibilities. But he preferred a profit in it and expected to own it without paying for it. I denied and hence the house still stayed under my ownership - the only one asset I had. So she was mainly showing her displeasure of losing an asset - a physical property - A house. 

No surprised. But her talking about my son, really hurt me. I had to clarify few things, but to his father and not her. Hence, I called him,

“I understand amma is hurt. But no one else is hurt as much as me. Please remind her that our son has not lost his parents. As long as my son needs me, I will be there for him. As long as you wanna be with him, I will never stop you either. Please make your mother understand this much.”

As always, he argued that his mother will never say such things. I was relieved that this time I had the conversation recorded (a process I started doing since the day she had first called to abuse me over my decision). When I mentioned that I can give him proof, he changed tones. “Maybe, mom said something. But she forgot.” Isnt it strange that people can forget things within minutes. Good for her.

The journey back was quiet. My son who was watching and over hearing the conversation felt bad too. All he said was, “Amma, I am sorry for making you call her. If she doesn’t need me,  I will never go there again.”

“No baby, he is your grandmother. She is now upset with amma. That’s why. If your father wants to take you there, you should go happily. They are also part of your family.”

At age 10, how much could he understand, I don’t know. Regretting with all heart that I had to put him thru this mess, I consoled him.

But atleast, that call was end of another relation too. A one-sided mother daughter relation…

More to go…

Question with no answer...

Many a times, I have wondered, why am I doing this again and again to myself. I keep portraying being happy, when in real I am nowhere near happiness. The vacation to India for my grandfather’s death anniversary added the last straw into my level of frustration. I keep ignoring things telling its not your problem, but theirs. Even the advice I got on this was always same. But then, how can it not be my problem, when I am supposed or rather expected to be part of them.

Its after years of my marriage that I knew that my mother in law was never happy with my marriage to his son. But, as it says, once after marriage everything should be ok. Afterall I had always tried to win her approval by giving my best in being a good daughter in law. As years passed by, I realised it was only bringing more negativity into me than any positivity in her towards me. She never liked me involving in “their” family matters and never liked any of the gifts that I would select and buy for her.

Constantly, I got her gifts, which with time, I started giving her an impression were her son’s selection and not mine. I could evidently see the way she flipped in her liking or disliking to any gift as per the person who selected the gift. It hurt, but I was trying to keep it off. As always, my husband took a back step, whenever I needed some sort of assurance or support to not take these things to heart. He kept flipping too, like a tennis ball from one court to another. I kept phrasing him, ‘Na ghar ka na ghaat ka.’ With time, me going to India became so minimal and rare that going to their place was close to none. My trips were always for a purpose and no travel prolonged for more than 3 days; mostly flying in and out within a span of 2-3days.

Anyways, this time, the travel was for 10days. Being the me, I proposed to go to her home and stay their for a day and then I could take my mother in law out for shopping etc (for she was always adamant to ensure that money was spent on her). The plan that I had proposed to her was to go over to her place and stay there and next day to visit a temple a bit away from her house to attend some family function. She said she will come back to me once she speak to her younger son.

Once reaching India, I called her to confirm the plan. Now, she had come up with a new plan that she wanted to be at the temple before 6am to see all temple rituals early morning. This sounded a bit too tricky considering the distance we might need to travel, getting a transportation, getting ready so early in morning etc (especially with the limited amenities that was in their house). I proposed to take a lodging near the temple and so that we could go there the previous night and stay. This would make it easier for both of us to get ready early morning and visit the temple fresh. She agreed and said again that she will come back to me on it.

4 days before the event, I called her up to confirm and to see if I can go ahead and arrange for lodging. She responded immediately, “You go and stay there. I will come with my son the next day. We have no problem getting up early and travelling.” Next statement was shocking more than surprising, “Between if you are planning to meet your mother in law in a hotel, then I am warning you, I will not come for the function.” I was taken aback by the way she put the whole thing in.

As I tried to talk to her, she went on with more of her tantrums and threatening of how a daughter in law should behave. She mentioned how she was accepting me inspite of all the flaws I had (her unhappiness was always for the fact that I came from a family who could offer no riches during marriage). I had had enough as I sternly responded, “If I can come to home and be there, I would surely come. But that will not be for fear of your threatening, but my personal wish. So please don’t try to threaten to make me do things. Same as you said, you don’t have to act any empathy or love to me, I am also no longer obliged to act.” She spat every swearing words she could and cut the call.

I sat there and cried as I saw the years that I had tried to please her and her sons to bring harmony and love in this relation. The whole thing was a failure. To add up,  my husband called to confirm how a daughter in law is expected to behave and whatever they did or did not do, I should be doing everything that the public would expect from me. I realised, this man could never stand up for neither his mother nor wife. He only knew to keep himself safe and his face clean in front of public. Why would I need to accept it again and again. “If there is a single soul back at your home who is waiting to see me, I will go. Can you assure me about even one such person?” I knew the answer and was not at all amused when he said, “It would be right that nobody is waiting for you there. But as a daughter in law, the people will ask why is the daughter in law not visiting and we would need to give an answer.”

I laughed. With a thud, I heard him disconnecting the call when I asked him my simple question. I knew, he would never have an answer…

“All expectations and duties would always be on the daughter in law and her to fulfil them. Isn’t it her right to expect something from her mother-in law? Can’t she expect a least bit of love or respect in return?”

Why can't I expect??? 

A Question with no answer...

A DiL-MiL Story – DiL Version

The moments are nearing…Soon, Miss will become Mrs…a total blankness was all that she had in her mind…She had pasted a Closeup Smile on her face for the past 48hours and waiting for this one moment….The beautician was doing the last touch-up of makeup on her face…a look into the mirror and she thought, “Uhm, I am looking beautiful…”…Just then somebody came in…Hey, Grandpa…and he is bringing in someone with him… A Lady just barged in and hugged her… Took a while for her to realize it was none other than her would-be Mother-in Law…here on, MiL…

Ok, now the MiL and the DiL meeting for the first time. In this century of technologies bride and groom’s family met through an advertisement on the newspaper...The NRI groom met the NRI bride as per instructed by his family back home …an OK by the groom..Marriage fixed…and thus the first day the MiL meeting the DiL became the D-Day itself…Anyways, there was not much reason for the MiL not to approve of the DiL…as DiL was beautiful and adorned in gold from head to toe…The marriage was a royal feast to watch with the auditorium and the two extra halls packed with guests watching the whole function in CCTVs…uhmmm…afterall…A Grand Marriage…

Soon the bride became a wife and placed the first foot into her new house…The house bustled with relatives…She was taken to a room and asked to change her clothes…Ha, that was a relief…In 20 minutes she changed to some comfortable clothes and less number of ornaments and came out to meet the groom’s relatives…Aha…What happened…why such a silence in the house…Uh, Is this a dream…or reality that all the relatives had left…All that remained was the MiL and the BiL watching TV…Hubby having some coffee…

This is not what she expected on her first day of marriage…this is not what she had seen at her family…she thought it would be fun as it was in her family when her cousins were married…Anyways, nothing happened…She just walked into the TV room and stood there…She replied a NO for hubby’s concern if she needed anything…Then, as if to the TV, the MiL said looking at his newly wed son, “What do you want to eat…Have to buy something from Hotel…” Another shock passed through the DiL…She asked, “Mom, nothing to eat here…???”…MiL replied, “Ha, we didn’t cook anything today na…there is some left over rice and curry of yesterday in the fridge…”

DiL was more than happy with rice…She happily stopped her hubby from going out in the night in search of a Restaurant in that remote village area…She got into the kitchen to maybe warm up the food from the fridge…Not so happy for leaving the TV, MiL too joined…Soon the rice and curry was served and ate by all four of them…MiL hurriedly ran back to find her position in front of the TV…She really couldn’t miss the reality programme showing in the TV… DiL spend another 2 hours trying to clear up the mess in the Kitchen and clean up the kitchen to a proper hygienic one…She thought, “Maybe the marriage rush is the reason for such a horrible kitchen…Afterall, only MiL to clean the stuff, right…How can she do everything alone…” As a dutiful DiL, she happily cleaned up the place…Between her hubby jokingly teased her with an old saying… “A new bride would sweep the roof”…

That was the first experience at her marital house…

Six months later…DiL & Son just came for a short vacation…DiL wanted to give a surprise to her MiL…So didn’t inform her about their surprise vacation plan…Dreaming about a happy, exciting, surprised meeting scene, DiL ran into the house…Hubby was still in the car trying to park it…

First expression of Mil – “Haaa…Youuuu two…I thought somebody else…WHY did you come without informing…I don’t have anything to eat for you both…You have to go and buy something to eat…”

First reaction of DiL (ofcourse a bit of depressed at MiL’s reaction) – “Uh, No, actually, We got a 4 days leave by chance and I thought we will give you a surprise…Don’t worry Mom, we will buy food from outside…”

The bags were being carried into the house and hubby entered house and went straight into his room…DiL just started removing her sandals, then…MiL came in…

Second set of conversation after the initial expression – “OK, anyways now u have come..its ok…but let me tell you something…LIKE LAST TIME DON’T BLOCK MY TOILET PIPE AND THEN JUST LEAVE…IT COSTED ME 2000Rs TO REPAIR THE BLOCK LAST TIME…”

This time, it was a SHOCK on DiL’s face…she was not really looking forward for such a set of love and affection from her MiL when she wanted to give her a sweet surprise…instead, her MiL was giving her a SHOCK of her life…Can any mother say so to their kids who came lovingly to her after months just to see her…DiL couldn’t imagine…Still DiL replied, “But Mom, I didn’t put anything that could block the pipe…” Hubby replied, “Mom, we didn’t put anything into your toilet…It’s been years you have built that toilet, naturally it might have got blocked after all these years…Don’t blame us for that…” Conversation that evening ended there…The mode went back to Watching TV again…

Back as an NRI…far away from her MiL; she lived her days…still she realized so many truths of her marital family…She realized the big difference between the family she dreamt of ( the family she has seen till then) and the family she had in real… Even if physically MiL was far away, MiL always succeeded in giving that “Negative Touch / Effect” in DiL’s life to make the situation unpleasant…With time, DiL was learning that her MiL was not what she wanted and expected…Still, she didn’t know WHAT WAS WRONG nor she understood WHY HER MiL WAS SO…DiL never showed any indifference and behaved as if nothing was wrong…

Another eight months after the 4 days leave…its been more than one year of her marriage…this time it is a 20days leave…the next morning of their arrival at the MiL’s house…the four members of the family sat together for breakfast…Hubby had his breakfast and went off to the verandah of the house to read the Daily…DiL wanted to give company to her MiL and BiL and chat with them…Between the conversation, MiL announced….

“I NEVER WANTED THIS MARRIAGE TO HAPPEN…MANY PEOPLE SAID MY SON WOULD HAVE GOT BETTER MATCH…THERE WAS ANOTHER PROPOSAL WHO WERE READY TO GIVE HIM 2 APARTMENTS AND 1 CAR…BUT WHAT TO DO…HE WANTED TO MARRY ONLY YOU…FOR DAYS, HE CALLED ME AND BEGGED TO LET HIM MARRY YOU…FINALLY I HAD TO SAY – DO WHATEVER YOU WANT”

Aha…sooo…Mystery unraveled…DiL joined 1 & 1 to 2 & 2…She understood the meaning of the indifference she saw…She couldn’t believe what she heard…After all that love and respect she had for her MiL…in return...???

And that was the beginning of every DiL’s story…It became the Home Page of the never ending epic named...

“100000000000001 Tales of the DiL and MiL – DiL Version”

NB: The above are pages from the Real Life Happenings of a Daughter-in Law…Any MiLs could have a totally different version to say…Still this is the DiL Version…I won't say all MiLs are not sweet and like above, but atleast some are...

A Blind Eye to Injustice...

DOWRY...quoting from Wikipedia…“A dowry (also known as trousseau or tocher or, in Latin, dos) is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings to her husband in marriage”…even though dowry is a criminal offense, the practice of giving and taking dowry still prevails in my home country…the dowry came in forms of gold, vehicles, money, property etc according to the demands of the groom or his family…uhmm…I myself have seen people bargaining as if they were buying a cow from the market… “Our son will marry your daughter if you give 100sovereign gold, one car and 2 lakhs in cash…” Haaaaaaaaa!!! What a dirty practice… there have been very regular cases of abuses of the bride at her husband’s house if the dowry was not properly given…Ok , now that’s a very serious issue on which I wouldn’t want to have a discussion now…but the story I am going to say here is very short and simple…

This might seem funny for us…but what might have gone through the people who had to face this situation is something we can never even imagine…This is not one of my personal experience…but a real life incident happened in a village area, where my father grew up…I heard this story when once my grandmom was quoting this incident to some one while they were having a discussion on Dowry…

This happened in the backdrop of a village on top of a mountain…around the 70’s…. I was not even born then, so naturally I couldn’t witness this incident myself…There was a poor farmer in my grandmom’s village who had three daughters…after exhaustive extensive search, finally they found a suitable groom for the elder daughter…(suitable here should mean a groom whose demand was the most feasible than a whole lot…) THE DEAL WAS FIXED…(that’s what I would like to explain it as…)…the marriage was fixed once it was promised that the father will give a fixed amount as cash and gold and a part of his land property….anyways…after much prayers of the girl’s parents, the marriage was solemnized…the bride and groom left for the boy’s house…

Now back home, there is a post-marriage custom where the bride’s family would visit the Bride’s New House (that is the groom’s house)…this ritual is usually done on the same day or the next day…and it is expected that the bride’s family should take with them some gifts tooooooo (after all the expenses for the marriage this just added to the financial liabilities)…What ever…. The girl’s family was happy that atleast one of their daughter got married…and they set out for their daughter’s new house…they reached the place and was just about to step into the house…and….

Ahaaa…there…on the walls of the house…right near the front door…hung some gold ornaments…they recognized the ornaments...they were the very ornaments their daughter wore for the marriage the earlier day…the father of the bride started sweating…he knew, his worst nightmare was about to start…he was going to get insulted sooner than he expected….

Now what happened was…the father couldn’t arrange enough gold as he had promised the groom’s family… to avoid the marriage getting called off, the father bought some artificial ornaments…which looked like gold but was not gold in real…he calculation was to exchange them with real gold as soon as he could arrange enough money to buy them…But, unfortunately… the groom’s family was cunning enough…the very night of the girl’s marriage, she was asked to remove the ornaments and give it to her mother-in-law…and then they checked with a goldsmith if the ornaments equated to the amount the girl’s father promised…and naturally, they found out the truth…

For the girl, that night was worse than words could explain and surely did her family too went through lot of insult and harsh words… and above all, they refused to accept the girl anymore…they ordered the girl’s family to take their daughter back with them…

What happened after this to the girl or his family is still unknown to me… but I remember, those days, when I heard this story from my granny, I was laughing…laughing on the thought of seeing the ornaments hanging on the wall…I was more attracted to the embarrassment the family might have gone thru…as if it was some sort of a prank...I couldn't understand the pain or sorrow, they could have gone through…

Today, I am grown up…I realise what the girl might have suffered…especially in those days when GIRLS had no say to make any decisions on their own…what choice could she have had... all she would have done was cry in silence... could she ever go against everybody and fight back for the shame she was made to go through...I don't know...I wish and hope that if I could save atleast one girl from the evil pangs of this system called Dowry, then I would consider myself worthy enough to live in this world…and I really hope every man and woman stand up and raise their voice against this criminal offense and work towards eradicating this practice once and for all….

Always remember, by giving or taking Dowry, we are turning into criminals...we are just being another offender of rules and regulations...another law violater...we are giving nothing other than...

"A Blind Eye to this Injustice..."