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JULY 22, 2012

SEVEN SISTERS

Enduring marriage
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VEN today, when I think about what I did in my foolishness and desperation I get goose bumps. I took a bus from Tezpur to Naharlagan via Bandardewa but there was no way to travel from Naharlagun to Itanagar unless I hitched a lift on a truck. Since I had just one day to procure the transfer certificates and submit them to the Solmara School I decided to proceed to do just this. It was eight in the night when I approached a truck it was the only vehicle available and the driver was reluctant to take me. Aur koi aurat nahin hai (there are no other women), he said to me. Just then the truck owner arrived on the scene. He was a burly man with a mustache, and he told the driver, Koi baat nahin! (never mind) and asked me to sit on the front seat inside the drivers cabin. Without thinking of the consequences, I boarded the truck. Both the truck owner and I sat there next to the driver in the front while the back of the truck was occupied by some labourers. The truck moved from Naharlagun towards Itanagar negotiating the curvy road through the dense jungle. I was frightened when I realised that the truck owner was taking advantage of the twists and turns on the road to fall on me. It wasnt difficult for me to guess what his motive was. It was pitch dark outside. As my mind raced to figure out how to find a way out of this problem, I saw some police guards as we approached zero point. Noticing the policemen, I asked the driver to stop. Through that road near zero point, one could reach the Raj Bhavan, the Governors residence. The truck owner told the driver not to stop. The driver defied him and brought the truck to a halt. I immediately jumped out of the truck. Puzzled, the policemen asked, Baideo, it is so late into the night and you are in a truck. The policemen had recognised me because that was the road I travelled every day on my way to school. Cmon, Ill escort you ahead, said one of them. After walking about three kilometres, I reached my house. I thanked the policeman and bade him goodbye. My hands and legs were shaking. It was past ten in the night a very late hour in the hills where people return to their homes as soon as the sun sets! *** I returned home from school to find my husband in an inebriated state. The young boy who worked for us was in tears. His face was swollen. Blood dripped from his nostrils. On asking him what happened, my husband prompted him, You tell her! You tell her!! Like in the past, whenever they saw cruel behaviour, this time too, my daughters clutched at my saree and stood behind me. The boy trembled in fear and said, Sahib always asks me about the visitors who come to this house when he is not

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iNKPOT
MON GONGAAR TEEROT ALONG THE RED RIVER
Sabita Goswami Triveni Goswami Mathur (Trans) Zubaan, Forthcoming Paperback/ Non-fiction
there. Even today he asked the same question. He specifically asked me if one particular person visited the house frequently during his absence, and when I said it is not true, he beat me. I lost my temper. Do not go out. I have to talk to you, I told my husband sternly. After applying some medicine on the boys wounds and giving my daughters something to eat, I took my husband to our bedroom. Without any hesitation or fear,
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I asked him, Cmon, tell me what you have to. Who invited that person to our house? That person was just another acquaintance of my husband who had been introduced to me when we were in Goa. When my husband met him in Itanagar he invited the man to our house out of the blue. I did not like it at all. The lifestyle we had in Goa and the life in Itanagar were two completely different things. I was not proud of my low-paid job or the way we lived here. Moreover, I had begun to feel that I had the ability to rise in my career and that my life had haphazardly been swept away by the flood of circumstances. My husband subjected me to police-like interrogation in the meantime. I was insulted beyond imagination. I felt that he had been bitten by the bug of doubt. Having devoted my entire youth to the care of my children, home and hearth, I had forgotten I had a life of my own! I could not tolerate being accused of immoral behaviour. If I have done anything, it is because you are incapable, I retorted in anger. I was surprised because my husband had never earlier looked at me

with suspicion. I was intrigued that his mind had become a hotbed of perverse thoughts. A whole barrage of questions troubled me. Was it possible to live like this? What would I do with my daughters? My life began and ended with my daughters. Every thought revolved around them. After drowning himself in alcohol, he muttered something and then fell asleep in the adjoining room. My sense of responsibility, reasoning power, deep affection all these emotions played havoc inside me. I thought my head would split! It was then that I gulped all 45 pills of Valium-5 I had collected over a period of time. Somewhere in my deepest thoughts, perhaps I had been contemplating suicide. Why else would I have collected so many sleeping pills?! *** The next day, my husbands nephew came with a message from my mother-in-law that we should vacate our house immediately and hand over the keys to him. My husband and his nephew talked in whispers. After I repeatedly asked him what the matter was, he finally told me. I then took both my daughters with me

and went to my mother-in-law to request her to allow us to stay on until the other house was completed. I pleaded before my mother-in-law. She refused. We had to vacate the house the following day. Dejected, I returned. In the evening, one of my husbands brothers-in-law, an uncle and one of his brothers came to our house with the same proposal. They discussed matters with my husband. This time round, however, I came to the sitting room where they were talking, holding both my daughters by their hands. Without further ado, I addressed them, If my husband can say that these girls are not his daughters, I will walk out of this house right now. But, if he cannot, then I will NEVER leave this house. You may do whatever you wish. I had done something that I had never had the guts to do before and I waited in fear for their reaction. My husband looked at me in anger. But he didnt say anything. His brother-in-law and uncle went away. This was the first time I stood before the elders of my husbands family without my head covered to show respect. Although the veil was just perched

MY husband subjected me to police-like interrogation in the meantime. I was insulted beyond imagination. Having devoted my entire youth to the care of my children, home and hearth, I had forgotten I had a life of my own!
on my bun, it was essential to show respect by covering the head. After this incident, I completely stopped covering my head. *** I shuddered with fear as dusk approached. My mother had come down from Tezpur and was staying in Dadas house. I called and requested my mother to come over at any cost. I did not tell her anything. My husband had just walked out of our home. The girls understood that there was something seriously amiss, and completely disturbed, they clutched on to my saree. After a while, Maa arrived with Dada. They knew I was not going to tell them much. I told Maa, Please take the girls with you for the night. She looked at me questioningly. I said, Dont worry. Nothing will happen to me. At the prospect of going with my mother, my daughters looked only too relieved. My husband returned. He asked in anger, Did someone come here? Where are the girls? Maa had come. I sent them with her. He did not react. We were both silent. As night approached I was increasingly scared of staying on in that house. He fixed himself a drink. After a little while, his friend, a resident of Uzanbazar, arrived. This man addressed my husband as Dada. Although I was worried when I saw him, I did not reveal my fear and anxiety. Both of them began drinking. As the hours passed their speech slurred and their voices rose. I kept making snacks for them. My husband wanted to keep all the doors and windows shut, but each time he shut them I pulled them open T

Breaking the shackles

SURJYA DAS TRANS: SIBA K GOGOI

UNU Boras latest book, Shrinkhal Singaar Ahbaan (Call to Break the Shackles), as its title denotes, makes an appeal to Indian women to break free of their centuries-old shackles. In India, woman is regarded as mans better half; she is said to hold up half the sky; she is worshipped as Durga, the Goddess of Power; Saraswati, the Goddess of Knowledge; Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth, but in reality the picture that we see of women is quite the reverse, and unbecoming of a civilised society. In Shrinkhal Singaar Ahbaan, Bora discusses crimes against women in modern India, crimes that compare with only the Talibans. Each of the 164 pages of the book contains facts about exploitation, oppression and subjugation of women. They point to an all-pervasive crisis facing womens society in 21st century India. India is not safe for women, an explosive finding in a country where they are venerated in different forms. According to a survey carried out by Thomson Reuters Foundations TrustLaw Women, India is fourth on the list of most dangerous countries for women. Afghanistan tops the list, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo (2nd) and Pakistan (3rd) (p31). Female foeticide is another example of women suffering injustice or the girl child still being considered a burden in todays society. As many as 40 lakh female feotuses were aborted in India in 1980 alone. In spite of the countrys abortion laws, female foeticides have not declined; rather, such cases have increased. Many doctors perform abortions to make money. The sad-

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BANGLADESHI writer Taslima Nasrins statement Bhagyabaner bou more abhagar more garu (The lucky man loses his wife, the unlucky his cow) holds true for our country as well
the girl child for elementary education, 123rd with regard to secondary education and 100th in the sphere of higher education. One-third of the women of the world who die in childbirth are from India and Nigeria. Census figures say Assam state has the highest rate of maternal deaths in the country. This exposes the true nature of development the State has seen in the health sector. India is the largest democracy in the world; the Indian Constitution has granted equal rights to all the citizens of the country, but in practice that has not happened; we still have a long way to go to reach that goal. The problem lies not in the path but in the lack of good will that has only increased the length of the road to be travelled. The World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Report 2009 had put India in

SHRINKHAL SINGAAR AHBAAN

Junu Bora Bhabani, 2011 `150, 164 pages Hardcover/ Non-fiction
dest part is female doctors are also involved in this illegal act. The number of female foeticides has gone up to 1.2 crore. Of the adult women who survived this peril of foetal homicide, 24.5 crore are illiterate. India is ranked 113th on the list of 134 nations in respect of enrolment of

the lowly place of 114th on the list of 134 countries. The areas of research on gender gap were economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival and political empowerment. According to the report, India was placed 134th, the lowest, in respect of development of women under the category of health and survival. The cause of this situation is poor health of mothers. Health care workers can attend to only 42% of the birthing mothers; every day 300 Indian women die while giving birth or from childbirthrelated complications. Another crime against women is the abuse they suffer at home, also called domestic violence. Women of many countries have been facing this problem. Issues of domestic violence dominated the 1994 Vienna agreement and 1995 World Conference on Women in Beijing. In India, 70 per cent of the women are victims of domestic violence; a married woman is burnt alive every six hours in this country. Moreover, women are beaten to death and forced to commit suicide. These are government statistics Junu Bora has cited in her book. As per a National Crime Records Bureau report, crimes against women take place every single minute in our country. Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrins statement Bhagyabaner bou more abhagar more garu (The lucky man loses his wife, the unlucky his cow) holds true for our country too. It is notable that violence against women has been going on since ancient times. The custom of sahamaran (dying together) or sati dah (self-

immolation of a widow on the funeral pyre of her husband) continued until the 19th century. The painful lives of widows, even without the practice of sati dah, and child marriages prove that those acts, once limited to Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas, have now become the order of the day. In present-day India, factors such as expansion of modern education and peoples greed for ill-gotten money so as to indulge in luxurious lifestyles have made violence against women part of our day-to-day lives. Education has spread; the number of degree-holders has also increased, but people have not become educated as such. Nowadays visuals of atrocities on women are shown on a large scale by the electronic media to raise their TRPs. Viewers have been misled by constantly flashing visuals that they are not supposed to see and by telling them unspeakable things. The electronic media keep viewers intoxicated with images of such incidents, thereby taking their attention away from the basic problems of food, clothing and shelter. The Indian womans status started declining in the latter part of the Vedic age, and it has continued till the 21st century. This issue has been discussed in detail in Shrinkhal Singaar Ahbaan. The book brings to the fore the enormity of the dangers confronting the lives of women in the 21st century. Ancient Indian shastras gave man enough right to control and enjoy the body of the woman but very less responsibility towards her. Though it was said in Baudhayana Sutra that sarbesang barnanang badhu rakshyatyam dhanat (Men of all races should protect women even at the cost of money), man followed the totally opportunistic policy of Chanakya atmanang sattang raksheda darairapi dhanairapi (Always protect yourself, at the expense of money and woman, if the need arises). Women were deprived of the rights to education and upanayan or investiture with the sacred thread at the

time. Education was given to harlots at the States expense and patronage, for men of the three high classes or varnas in Aryan society would go after mistresses after their wives became frail or lost their youth because of childbirth, upbringing of children and domestic chores, whcih rendered them unable to satisfy the lust of their husbands. This system prevailed in our country until the 19th century. People from these three varnas had put their wives in the same position as the shudras and dogs. The Taittiriya Samhita says jajman (the person performing a sacrifice through a priest) should not look at dogs, shudras and women (6/5/8/9). Woman has been portrayed as ominous in the Maitrayani Samhita (3/8/3). Moreover, it says woman is not fit for freedom. According to Vashistha Dharmasutra, the woman will be protected by her father in her teens, by her husband in her youth and by her son in her old age; the woman does not deserve freedom. (Pita rakshyati koumare, bharta rakshyati youvane/ Rakshyati sthabire putra, na stree swatantratam harhati, 5/1/-2, 2/2/3, 44, 45). This, indeed, is the country called India, the land of thousands of years of civilisation, the land of Mahatma Gandhi, Gautam Buddha and Lord Krishna, where the status of women is as it was ages ago. All the Assamese-speaking women should read this book to know themselves. The conscious womens bodies should also get the book translated into other Indian languages. Perhaps, to atone for its sins, the ruling class of India has circulated this advert: We worship Goddess Durga, but destroy girls. When we talk about knowledge we take the name of Goddess Saraswati. Why is woman insulted when she gives birth to Lakshmi? Think about this if there were no girls, where would you get daughters-inlaw? Dont keep silent in such situations. Dont kill foetuses; dont let there be any flood of blood of the girl child. A girl in a family is its wealth. Care for her. T