Posted:
I would like to examine gauri's argument a bit.
Though I am irritated with gauri for going and yelling at the haveli people all the time and also at her crude behaviour and conduct ---
I think she brings up a valid discussion point.
For folks to say "oh look you are a doctor now" doesnt really wipe out the fact that she did face atleast six years of trauma in her childhood till she reached teenage years and went off to medical college.
It wasnt just that the G-J child wedding was nullified by the Panchayat and then everyone lived happily ever after. While there were little or no implications for J, and he and the singhs quickly forgot about it and moved on with their lives ...
There were very serious implications for gauri and her family -- they couldnt get her married elsewhere, they were thrown out of and ostracized in every town they went to, people used to give her several mocking comments. Now assuming that gauri was in the 6th grade and she only went to college after 12th grade -- we see that 6 years of ostracism and name calling etc. would have really damaged her sense of self etc. The samaj and the people were very cruel to her. They would have called her all sorts of names left right and center.
In addition to which the pain of being "rejected" at all times is very traumatic because there is a fundamental assumption of worthlessness that comes with it. The feeling of "not good enough" for the singhs (which i think is behind her desperate attempts to get them to accept her so that she is seen as "good enough"
In addition, her father was an alcoholic at the time, and though not explicitly stated it is clear that he used to beat her too when he would get drunk and hold her responsible for the problems he was having socially (she said that nobody was willing to hire him).
After a while, the facts of the wedding would have really escaped her -- and she would have been wishing that she indeed had continued to be the child-bahu of the singhs.
So yes, she did climb out of that pit and go to medical college -- but those 6 years must have been very, very, very traumatic for her.
So, now if she is indeed a successful M.S. doctor, that's great -- but can this professional success compensate for her personal loss?
I dont think that anything compensates for personal trauma.
I mean if I am raped by some 18 year old -- and after that, the rapists father finances me to Harvard Business School to make up for his son's rape -- and folks say "oh look he sent you to Harvard Business School and now you are professionally accomplished -- so that rape means nothing at all" I dont think that really makes much sense.
Accomplishment in one area cannot be considered an appropriate substitute for a loss in another area.
Anyway, I am just exploring this question to see what you all feel.
That being said -- there comes a personal point in my life where I get tired of rolling around the losses in my head from the past -- and by now, I would have just moved on in Gauri's position -- not because I didnt feel the loss -- but because I wouldnt want to mire my future by constantly mucking around in the same thoughts.
But different people have different time spans and emotional thresholds to experience grief, so it is not my place to say whether gauri should be over it or not. I cant tell gauri how to feel.
But the question still remains -- has baapusa put a keemat on her experience of 6 years of trauma experienced as a child?
