LIFE TIES
Breaking the pattern of abuse
Taru Bahl

TRIPTI'S gynaecologist was also her friend, confidante and guide. Saddled with a never-ending list of ailments, including repeated abortions, the senior doctor had tried to counsel the 35-year-old Tripti to take stock, at least of her body, by not getting pregnant with babies she did not want.

From what little insight she had into the young lady's life,, she knew that this was a clear case of abuse.

Though technically her husband did not physically ill-treat her, mentally and emotionally, he had harassed her to the point of making her a near nervous wreck. If anything kept her going,, allowing her to maintain the mask of "all's well", it was thanks to their position in society. Belonging to the upper crust, residing in a town where everyone made it their business to acquaint themselves with every personal detail of other's lives,, she had for over 15 years tried to find reasons to stick on in a marriage and a household where abuse had become a recurring pattern. The ironical thing was that while everyone could see how it impacted her, Tripti herself was oblivious of the damage it was doing to her and to the family she had devoted all her waking hours to, in the hope of filling in gaps with her unconditional love and tenderness.

From a vivacious, bubbly girl who connected with people effortlessly, she had turned into a guarded,, restrained socialite who in spite of retaining her porcelain good looks, felt empty inside. She had never asked herself: "What is it that I want?" She was acutely conscious of her private hell but could not do a serious stocktaking. For that would certainly lead to a situation where some sort of resolution would have to be sought and she wasn't prepared to make any drastic changes.

The abuse, as she saw it, was at least a familiar part of her life now and she had expanded her faculties to cope with it. Any attempt to snap out of it would require a great deal of emotional and physical restructuring, which she was convinced she was incapable of undertaking. Even if she did make the first brave attempt, she knew she would not be able to stick with the decision till the end. Her husband's late and erratic hours of working, converting the house into a motel at night with people of all hues filtering in for drink-and- ghazal sessions, insisting on her presence were occurrences which had not sprung up overnight.

From the initial years of her marriage, she had seen that he was an insecure person, who by flaunting his ancestral wealth and status liked being constantly surrounded by people. This made him feel important, wanted and loved. When ever she tried reasoning with him or saying 'no' to his taking her for granted, he reacted so violently that she felt it was easier to give in. Whereas she knew that she could muster the strength to take him head on for one or two issues, but on multiple occasions she was bound to lose steam. There was going to be no respite unless she chose to make the final break away.

With the steady deterioration of their relationship, somewhere he too knew that she had begun to contemplate leaving him. Whenever he saw that resolve gaining momentum, he got her pregnant, thereby ensuring her defiant trail of thought got temporarily derailed. To most of her friends this was unimaginable just as it was barbaric. They could have accepted a poor uneducated woman being at such a receiving end but Tripti was a senior lecturer in the Government College, she counselled her students so effectively and was respected as a woman who had a thinking mind. Then how in her own home had she allowed herself to be tortured thus ? Her helpless reasoning, "I can't fight him. He is much too aggressive sexually and physically, besides he knows how to manipulate situations to suit his end. I can't match upto that" sounded weak even to her own ears. She didn't have to take it was what everyone who knew part of her story had to say with a horrified certainty. And she knew they were right.

With growing children, Tripti had always thought that it would be a worse scenario to move out via the legal route. She also knew that he would not make it easy. For the sake of the children, she had soldiered on. She took the abuse, knowing fully well that she was not responsible for all the accusations he heaped on her. She had got used to it so she did not get so appalled at the manner in which he sometimes publicly humiliated her or treated her in private. What, however, was beginning to kill her was seeing her children respond in much the same manner. They spoke rudely and refused to run errands. They demanded attention to suit their convenience, never taking cognizance of the fact that she may be tired or upset. What hurt tremendously was their speaking to her in exactly the same manner in which her husband spoke. They too publicly started pushing her around, saying hurting things, behaving arrogantly, putting her down and communicating with a body language which was offensive.

On one of her umpteenth visits to her doctor, when she recounted part of what she was going through, she was stunned by the 'diagnosis', "you love the abuse. It somewhere makes you feel good about yourself." It could not be. How could anyone love abuse? Had she not spent the better part of her life, crying, wishing some miracle would happen and she would be freed ?

Juxtaposing the doctor's analysis with what had started happening vis a vis the kids was when she felt that enough was enough. She had taken a lot of abuse from her husband but she was not going to take it from her children. Children who she had given birth to, who had been her singular point of reference all these years, to whom she had selflessly given herself to in the hope that they would turn out into caring, sensitive individuals had no right to treat her so shabbily. She decided to call it quits, simply because she too knew that no miracles were going to happen in her life at least and unless she did something about her situation, things would never get better.

Maybe her children would draw some lessons from it and if they cared for her they would understand why she did what she did. For now, she told herself that abuse from the husband she had taken but no way would she take it from the children. Maybe she needed this harsh reality to jolt her out of the reverie to do what was 'right' for her.

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