The messed up families at the Family Court

     My divorce was finalized last week. It was a terrible experience, not the divorce but the marriage. I was lost for seven years. And it was such a relief that I got ‘me’ back. Yes it is a difficult life, but I am used to do stuff alone even when I was in that relationship. The family court in Coimbatore has given me such meaningful experiences. The first time I went there I was real sad. Sad not because it was the beginning of the end of my marriage, but because I saw many women in worse state than I was. There was this weird silence with high tension in the waiting area which anyone who walks in can feel. The place was crowded with all mismatched couples and a few parents.

     There was this one young girl with her dad and I saw their advocate talking to them. She seemed friendly and I started talking to her. She was more than okay with the idea of divorce. She showed me the guy she had married, a tall baldie who looked very normal. They were married for a very short time and they decided to end it legally with mutual consent. I thought it was very smart of them, unlike me who went through a hell of seven long years. The other women I saw were not solucky as the young girl.

     Their sad faces told a different story, a story that is not anywhere near its end. It is not the separation that gives relief; it is the emotional detachment from the spouse that caused/causes pain. The process of divorce is easier if it has mutual consent, if not it is an opening to a mine field. I saw couples quarrelling in the waiting area and even in front of the judge.

     The most heartrending scene for me was to see a young mother who had come with her tiny baby. The mother and the grandmother of the baby tried everything to comfort the crying baby. Finally they gave in and the mom started to feed the baby covering it with a towel on her shoulders. She felt really awkward to do that with so many men around her. She couldn’t leave the place too as her name would be called any minute.  And as it is most of the time for some of us (life is unfair) her name was called and she pulled the baby from her breast, gave it to her mother, and moved into the courtroom hastily. I saw her husband too going in, who had been standing there all along with no emotion whatsoever, looking at the crying baby and the two women struggling to comfort it, like any other man there.

     That reminded me of the horrible things that had happened to me by this one man whom I loved dearly once.  My baby was cranky all the time, crying mostlyexcept when she was sleeping. This one night I was doing some work in the kitchen and I heard her crying. I thought her dad would take care as he was lying next to her. But she didn’t stop. So I went in and it disturbed me to see him so undisturbed by her tears. I bent down to pick her up telling him why he couldn’t do something about her crying. He with all his might kicked me at my chest, sending me sharp pain as I was lactating then. He went back to sleep and I came out the bedroom carrying my sweet baby.   I have decided not to let my screwed up marriage affect me in any way, but this incident is something that brings me tears every time I think of it.

     Standing there in the court with all such thoughts flooding my mind only made me want to be stronger than ever before. And on the final day, at the same place, while waiting for my name to be called, I went to him and sat next to him talking. By that I told him indirectly that I am in control of my life and that he cannot stop me from being happy. I went to café coffee day straight from the family court and had me a chocolate cake. Though I have it every time I go there, it tasted much better that day.

We, the Machine Makers!

                  What is the end of education? It makes you a better person.  But now?  Education is a means to make money or like in many cases to get a prospective marriage proposal.  Young minds are expected to get the degree and see big bucks right away. Not their fault, because education is given to them by people who want to see big bucks. It is not a service to the society, to give back, that is in the minds of the people (mostly successful business men) who run such institutions. This idea of “real success is if you make money” is forced on everyone. One common goal for all. And the result every individual learner is expected to act and talk and even look the same way.

            It begins from school, in the form of Uniform! The idea behind this uniform culture here is so that the kids know that they are equals. But are they? Why hide the fact from them? Why not teach them the truth for a change? That some are rich and some are not so and that it is all fine as long  as  you have a good heart.

             My daughter is allowed to wear hair clips or head bands only if those are black or white.  Why this lesson on discrimination at a young age?  It is decided that other colors are not appropriate. May be so the kids will not be distracted from studying and get attracted towards other beautiful things? How depressing! It is like a scene in “the Village” when a hand plucks and crushes the beautiful red flower (or yellow I don’t remember) that has bloomed that morning.

              Every one of us is different and still every one of us must respect each other. Isn’t this we should teach in schools to make them be responsible grown –ups? Instead we deprive them of simple joys and call that “discipline.”  

             “Pig tails and other focus areas” an article by Reena Salil in the Hindu , Coimbatore edition (July 6, Open Page ) discusses a similar issue. The “rule book” for girls is bulkier than boys’.  Too much “protection” is what harms them more. Our culture is so that dependency is the only way for growth of an individual, dependency on the parents or on the code of the society. And so our kids stumble when it comes to making a decision or thinking about doing something new, different from others. That is why the mass production of doctors and engineers.

             It continues to happen in colleges. Individuality is killed here too. How is it possible to expect young adults to behave the same way? Appropriate behavior is fine but the same behavior? If anyone deviates a little then they are wrong and punished, to maintain order. All the thinking is done for them already. Like a live studio audience they are expected to laugh when they are shown a ‘laugh’ board.  That is the condition here now. Choose medicine or engineering, get grilled for four or five years, get a job that pays well. The End? No! They leave the student-proofed school/college and enter into the real world. 

              They learn their real lessons here, the hard way.

                                                                                       

The "Modern" Woman!

                I went to an all women police station to give a complaint against my (ex) husband who had the habit of beating me up black and blue. My complaint was not taken instead I was given a lecture about the uniqueness of the station. Their job is not to break up couples but to unite them, I was told. The frequent visits to the police station and to the court,  if I filed a complaint  was brought to my notice. It frightened me. I was in severe pain already and I was emotionally wounded too.  

                He was called and they talked to him, hearing out his problems with me (spending money for lipstick, going to the mall without making dinner for him, going to watch movie alone at night...) All these made them look at me differently. I don’t blame them because they were brought up to think like such things are wrong for a woman to do. The day ended there. We were asked to come the next day. The next day I went there straight from work. The way I was treated made me feel horrible. A woman in uniform looked at my accessories and made sarcastic comments. The lady in charge  asked me with a smirk  “Do you work in a co-ed college?”  I was judged by the lipstick and the neck piece I was wearing!

          Had I gone there with torn clothes and messed up hair may be they would have sympathized with me. I was calm and composed, not because I was okay, but because I had no life left in my body or in my mind then. So unknowingly I had given them the wrong impression of a “modern” woman.  They expected some one uncontrollably weepy or someone who verbally attacks the husband who has done wrong. But there I was sitting with a heavy heart listening to the load of shit he was telling them about me.

            I had confused my neighbors too. They hear me crying in pain at night when he attacks me. The next day they see me leave the house and come back with a big bag of pizza or something. Modern woman!

              I was expected to sit and cry in darkness for the life that I had.  I did that too, but only for a few minutes right after the attack. Then when the sun rises I see the new day and do my stuff.  After seven years of experiencing the same thing over and over again I got used to it. I no longer talked back, or cursed or left the house or cried. At one point nothing he did made me to react.

              This one time after thrashing me, he started abusing me verbally, I was still quiet and  not even a drop of tear fell from my eye. He spat on me and left. I got up went to the bathroom, washed my face, and did what I had to do next. I didn’t want him to win. I didn’t want to crumble down, not at least in front of him. I didn’t want that dark force to affect me. This could not be understood by all.

              Even now when people come to know that I live alone they tell me that I should have stayed with him for the sake of my daughter.

          Going to watch a movie, or eating out , or living alone are not signs of showing others how “modern” I am. Sometimes only those things give me peace!