Story by Nandani, translated from Hindustani by Janees
Songs of Freedom bring stories from women — certainly not victims, not even survivors but fighters against the patriarchal status quo with support from the organisation Shaktishalini[1]
–Sanjay Kumar, founder, pandies‘
Nandani is an 18 year-old from Delhi, currently studying in the 10th grade. In her free time, she loves to read biographies, hang out with her friends, dancing and singing. She calls books as good friends of hers and looks forward to travelling across the world once in her lifetime.
An Ordinary Tale
A story set in the year 2002. An ordinary story I must tell.
When a girl child is born in a Panditfamily, the mother welcomes Goddess Lakshmi. But the mother-in-law is unable to fathom bahu’s [2] joy over the girl baby. Call it outdated, archaic, outmoded. For the saas[3], a son would have proven to be a boon, a blessing straight from the heavens, a support to the family’s genes. She, like many others, was of the belief that a girl born is nothing but a burden who must be ‘disposed’ off to another family at the earliest. What are women but estranged wealth?! The world is run by men, their divine masculinities, their valour, by their being. Women are absolute subordinates to men. She failed to understand that being born a ‘male’ is simply a matter of – birth.
But bahu was not ready to give up. She would put in efforts to make her family think otherwise. She named her daughter Avantika. When Avantikahad grown up a bit, the saas one day cunningly said, “Bahu! See I like to put forward things as they are, no sugar-coating. I want you to focus on giving birth to my grandson now. I hope I will not be disappointed this time.”
The poor bahu was busy attending household chores. She tended to ignore the otherwise outrageous demands the mother-in-law burdened her with. Meanwhile the saas thought to herself, “Now that I have explicitly expressed my wish to bahu, maybe it’s better to let my raja beta[4] know of my justified desire.” So, she made sure she had her wish conveyed to her son. “My dear son, I have expressed my wish to Bahu – for a grandson, with whom I can enjoy the joys of grandmotherhood.” For the son, the mother’s wish was as good as a divine decree.
The bahu, who has overheard their conversation, felt betrayed and outraged. “How could you say yes on my behalf? What about my consent? I am not ready for another child. You don’t have a job. You don’t let me go out and work. You are living off your mother’s expenses… drinking, beating me to death every night! I don’t want to traumatise another child the way Avantikahas been traumatised.”
Her husband retorted, “How dare you? Who are you to stop me from taking decisions?” Basically, what he meant was that she was his slave and had no authority in deciding how many kids she wanted, when to have and so on and so forth.
The saas interfered in the matter and somehow convinced, or rather forcibly convinced the bahu to bear a child. We will not go into the details of this.
2005
Another girl child was born! The saas, was not just disappointed this time. She experesses her intolerance of this development. “All I ever wanted was one grandson! Not five or eight. Bahu is deliberately depriving me of this privilege. It was wrong of me to trust her.” Again, she simply failed to comprehend how sex and science works!
With the birth of Nira, the bahu’s life became hell … rather was made hell by her mother-in-law and husband. Violence grew. “Ever since this girl has taken birth, a curse has taken over the joys and prosperity of our home. I refuse to accept her. Her arrival is a time of tribulation for us.”
The contempt and disgust if the saas towards the bahu and her daughters were echoed by the husband and father, who had turned more violent than before, and why not ? He had all the more reason to inflict pain on his wife. Backed by his mother, he started beating his wife every day, cursed her all day. When Niraturned one-and-a-half, the hostility worsened. The bahu turned numb. A wish as simple as wanting a decent life was out of her reach. “Because of you I live a miserable life despite being a man. You are the reason my brothers and mother don’t respect me. You and your daughters have ruined my relations with them….”
One day something changed. She mustered the courage to say ‘no’ despite the routine beatings. She was not willing to take it anymore and so, with her two little daughters, she decided to leave the house.
“I have not sinned. I have given birth to daughters and that is no sin. There is not a single defect in me or my daughters. It is you, your intentions, and your mentality that is defective…I reject living a life like this.”
She sought refuge at her paternal home and soon began working to support her daughters. Now, she had a life that promised, to all intents and purposes, a relief from the darkness of the past. A few months later, she fell in love with a colleague at work. Nobody knew what occurred to her, but leaving her two daughters behind, the mother eloped with the lover to start a new life. She turned blind to the plight of her own daughters who were just starting out with the promise of a fresh start.
Avantika and Nira, unaware that another calamity had befallen them, adapted to the new life under the shadow of their maternal grandmother, their nani. Unable to look after the girls with growing time, nani took a difficult call due to her ailing health. “Can you look after the girls when I die? Can you take care of them?” she asked her other daughter (the girls’ aunt). “I wish I could…but in today’s time managing two more children… It’s beyond my capacity…I understand what they mean to you…so for you maybe I can look after Avantika, the elder one…however, something must be done about Nira…”
A few weeks later, the nani sent for their aunt and said, “I am here today, but who knows about tomorrow? We must take final decisions with regards to Avantika and Nira. All they have is me. I am glad you took charge of one of them. But something must be thought about the other as well. I am sure God will send help.”
“Mother, I have an acquaintance who is associated with a shelter home. Sending Nirato a girls’ hostel should take care of our worries. Let me get in touch with her.”
Little Nirawas sent to a girls shelter home. She cried a lot on separation from sister and nani. A year later the news of nani’s death upended the girls’ lives. Trying to cope with the grief, they adapted to their new lives – one day at a time, one goal at a time.
2023
Both Avantika and Nira are growing up at their own pace – finding new goals to focus on. They are not together, nor are they in touch. But they are fighters and survivors. And this is how this story has end for the time being. However, certain questions continue to haunt me…
Do you discriminate between a son and a daughter? What would Avantika and Nira’s mother do if her parents did not offer to support her? Can women discriminate against other women? Why is it that a woman often finds it difficult to find solidarities from fellow women?
It is quite difficult to single out the oppressor and the oppressed in this story, however, that does not spare us from rejecting to inflict this age-old atrocity on our women. This has to stop with our generation.
.
[1] “Establishing itself as a premier women’s organisation in India from 1987, Shaktishalini has spread out and deals with all kinds of gender based violence. A shelter home, a helpline and more than that a stunning activist passion are the hallmarks of this organisation.
“pandies and Shaktishalini – different in terms of the work they do but firmly aligned in terms of ideological beliefs and where they stand and speak from. It goes back to 1996 when members of the theatre group went to the Shaktishalini office to research on (Dayan Hatya) witch burning for a production and got the chance to learn from the iconic leaders of Shaktishalini, Apa Shahjahan and Satya Rani Chadha. And collaborative theatre and theatre therapy goes back there. It is a mutual learning space that has survived over 25 years. Collaborative and interactive, this space creates anti-patriarchal and anti-communal street and proscenium performances and provides engaging workshop theatre with survivors of domestic and societal patriarchal violence. Many times we have sat together till late night, in small or large groups debating what constitutes violence? Or what would be gender equality in practical, real terms? These and many such questions will be raised in the stories that follow.” — Sanjay Kumar
[2] Daughter-in-law
[3] Mother-in-law
[4] Beta is son and raja is king
Janees is an independent researcher and theatre-practitioner who has been associated with Pandies for the past six years.
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