I had a happy childhood. I had friends, played games, sang songs and was active in school. I would take on boys who harassed me and my friends on the way to school. They feared me. When I came home, I helped my mother, fetched water, cooked and washed clothes but my mother did not want me to waste time and preferred that I studied, watched TV and have the freedom to do what I wanted. All my friends stopped studying after class X because there was no transportation. I too discontinued, but planned to somehow pursue my education.
I often told my mother that I did not want to get married but she kept saying that she has two daughters and it was a heavy responsibility. There was a general fear that it was not safe for girls to remain unmarried and that we would fall in love and elope. My parents spoke about girls in the village who had inter-caste marriages and eloped. Thus my marriage was fixed to a boy who was 26, the only son of his parents and had property. I was only 17 and did not want to marry, but thought about my parents, their poverty and responsibility of settling my sister and educating my brother. So I agreed without much fuss. My parents took heavy loans to pay for dowry, gave cash and gold to the boy’s family and got me married.
But when I reached my marital home, I felt unwanted and like a stranger. Nobody spoke to me. I was not given instructions regarding where to put my things and my husband and his mother objected to whatever I did. My mother-in-law would just not help. She was violent and demanded that I get soaps, toothpaste and other things from my mother’s house. I was never given special food to eat. On the other hand, my mother-in-law and husband would often visit my sister in-law’s house, leaving me behind and ate well there. My sister-in-law too always fought with me when she visited us. My husband gave his salary to his mother and never asked me if I wanted anything. Even when I visit my mother’s house, he demands cash from my parents for travel expenses.
They did not let me talk to the neighbours and would get suspicious. Soon, they started to beat me up on trivial issues and I began crumbling. My husband would not listen to my complaints and shut me up brutally. He would ask me to talk to him only when his mother is not around.
At night, my mother-in-law would strangely sleep with her head near our bedroom door. Around midnight, she would cough and my husband would go out of the room, bolt it from outside and come back only after two or three hours. He seemed to be having an affair with a married woman with two children and who was a tenant in the house. When I asked my husband, he never replied. I used to confide in my mother but she could only listen sympathetically and did not help in the matter. I stopped sharing my woes with my mother since she was helpless.
For the first two years there was no consummation of marriage. My mother-in-law would accuse me of not having children and used that as an excuse to beat me up. I picked up courage one day, confronted and told her that she very well knew that there had been no sexual contact between me and my husband and how did she expect me to have children? She said that I could leave the house if I was so unhappy. Her son would find another girl. I was so enraged that I asked the kulam panchayat to meet and settle the matter of my divorce. Then I made a public statement in front of the community about the marriage not being consummated and also about the violence from in-laws. The kulam panchayat agreed for a divorce and agreed to my parents demand to return the dowry amount of Rs.3 lakh as compensation for divorce me. At this demand, my in-laws took me back home and two months later, I was pregnant.
My entire duration of pregnancy was a torture. I had cravings for food but was not given anything. There was total hostility in the atmosphere. I don’t know how I survived until I went to my mother’s home for my delivery.
At the time of delivery my husband refused to be with me. It was a breech baby and my husband finally came to the hospital when he was threatened with action if he did not sign the form. He came on the condition that the baby should not be dark like me and a girl. I delivered a baby girl and stayed in my mother’s house for recuperation. My husband and his family did not visit me for three months. My parents sought the help of the ‘kulam panchayat’, which met again and threatened my husband and mother-in-law to take me and the child back.
Nothing has changed in my relationship with the in-laws and husband. If anything, it has worsened. My baby is so undernourished. When my parents celebrated the baby’s first birthday, my mother-in-law refused to bless me or the child. She pushed me against the wall and I was so hurt that I sought refuge at my mother’s place.
The kulam panchayat met again. They recommended that I go back and that I and my husband live separately from his mother. They threatened to withdraw support if I did not take their advice. I have no strength to tolerate this cycle of violence, come home to parents, have a panchayat, go back to the husband and face domestic violence again and again. My parents hope that the situation will improve. I am isolated completely, doing all the work in the house with and have no with anybody in my mother’s house.
Narrative provided by M Venkatarangaiya Foundation in their report ‘…and they never lived happily ever after. The battle for justice goes on: Voices of married girls in Telangana’
