My Parents' Married Life

It's pity that I wasn't present in their marriage ceremony otherwise I wouldn't let it happen...What??? The marriage between them was the mother of all mismatches. They never get along well, usually shouting at each other because dad takes too much care of his mom and brother, while his own children were sort of orphans. In past, he used to beat mom, his wife, in front of US, his children. I remembered exactly the scene in which she was cooking a meal and he was hitting on her back.

I tell mom frequently whenever she narrates her ordeal after marriage, "Why didn't you dump him??? Why???"

The replies I get are a mixture of reasonability and unreasonability. The heart of the matter is she had no courage to divorce him. It's the strong rule of our cast that a woman can not remarry, whatever the reason may be. Whether the husband dies or abandons her, or starts living with another woman or marries again. The wife has only one chance in her entire life to experience the marriage rituals.

I counter argued once that after divorce, she could pass her life with her mom. But her mom and my grandma is a witch to some extent. She had five daughters including my mom. One committed suicide due to the mental and physical harassment by that witch. So it's obvious that my mom wouldn't take the serious step of divorce and then spend rest of life with that mother witch. Another possible way was to stand her own feet by earning herself, which she never did. She studied until tenth grade so maybe she could get job of a peon somewhere, I think. She still regretted to me always, why she dropped her studies? But she only did because her father died. She loved him so much that she left her study overnight after his death. At that time she was fifteen, so this sort of childish decision was doubtlessly taken.

Whatever the reason, she must have divorced him. But where could she can buy the much needed courage? In her early married days to live with in-laws wasn't the bed of roses, but more of a bed of thorns, I should say. My mom was the most pampered child. It's necessary in lower class Indian women to know how to cook. But she never learned. So at in-laws, my dad's mom, his brother, and his two sisters found fault in everything she cooked, even if she did her best. After the meal, she washed utensils. But they found them unclean and every day utensils were washed by my dad's sisters again, a second time in front of the very depressed gaze of my mom.

The big bomb was blasted on the day when my mom sat by the side of her mother in law on the same string cot. My dad opposed it strongly. He firmly believed that it was disrespectful behaviour. She should have sat on the floor not with his mom on the cot. My mom cried as dad used offensive language and started to beat her in front of whole family. I can't add more in this incident on my own as I want to keep it authentic but what I do know is after this humiliating moment, my mom poured a can of kerosene on her and searched frantically for matchbox. By overhearing the shots and screams from the house, whole village gathered at the home to see the drama with sheer curiosity and wretchedness. What stopped her from burning alive I didn't know, but she is still breathing! It was said that before my dad's marriage the relationship between his mom and him was sour and they were accustomed to quarrel. But god knows what happened that after marriage they were the epitome of ideal mother-son love!!!

The mother-in-law rechristened her daughter in law after marriage. From Bhanu (Sanskrit of sun) she turned in to Manhar (Sanskrit of enchanting). She decided the particular men of the village whose faces my mom must not see at any cost. While going home, mom was escorted by her mother in law and the later coughed to caution mom to have temporary veil with the help of pallu of her sari whenever the person passed by the same lane who was in the must-not-see list. She could remove it only when the person went out sight from any angle.

There was no facility of a toilet, so every morning she had to walk to the river-bed covered with thick thorny bushes, where the all women of the village came to follow the nature's call. If she returned home five minutes late, mother-in-law quipped herself fully to rebuke her. She took her bath in cow-shed. She carried a bucket of water and a little stool to sit on. The other option for bath was in one of the corner of veranda where she put a coat diagonally and stood on one of the sides of rectangular frame and in this little corer she took her bath. She put on clothes in sitting position otherwise she could be seen. Her plight decreased some what when dad got job in another town. But the physical tortures were the same. My sis and I came into this world. It was very strange that all four of us slept in the same room of the house, which had a drawing room, bed room, kitchen and small veranda. The most amusing stuff was, in my childhood, I'd had an immense fear of ghosts. So I begged my parents to let me sleep between them to protect me from both right and left side. By my right side, daddy and left side mum slept. However when I awoke in the morning, I found that they slept together leaving me unprotected from one of the sides and I started to quarrel with them! I don't remember their excuse for committing such nuisance but now I know it was to perform sex.....Shit, I've never got a chance to watch them having sex. I should have pretended to be sleep and from the corner of my eyes, I should have enjoyed the activity, the only time when they seemed to be enjoying their married life. However I did get a chance to peek at their organs. My mom was hairy between her legs. I saw it once when she was urinating. And my dad had long but thin curved penis, I got chance to have a look once he was changing his clothes.

Gradually, dad became cool minded. Suffering made him calm to a point. The reason of his suffering was his daughter failure in love and then she got schizophrenia and I was diagnosed with acute depression. He hit me cruelly when I was child and then in my teen years, because I was suffering from mental disease. I hit him once because I felt he was at fault for my ruined my childhood. (He was then too weak to react.) He never hugged me, kissed me or showed any kind of affection. Never gifted me anything on my birthdays or gave me pocket money. Whenever he was at home, I felt like imprisoned under the callous terrorist.

So one can understand the condition of my dad whose both kids are undergoing treatment for horrible mental health. And both failed at every walk of life. He stopped behaving badly to my mom. But it was too late as mom can't forget what he had done to her in past. She married him with lots of hopes and expectation but all were shattered...

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I'm highly obliged to blackstallion21 for editing it.