Morning META Group.
FQ, I am incapable of thinking of the next Meta discussion or who starts, for I seem to have been stuck on this one. I am unable to let it go. This is going to be long, but I feel responsible to do it today.
There are has been a lot of knowledge sharing, personal experiences sharing.
Bhoomi & FQ come in the first category. I am going to edit the thread and take a print out. I need the hard copy to go through the literature and theories of other great people that they put across me. I would like to read a little if not the whole thing.
On the personal experience sharing, FG, RP and myself has a thing in common and I am so struck by the consistency in our narrative. All three of us had too much to say but then we just minced our words and showed the peep in a minimal manner. That is pain. No one wants to talk about it and we who have survived would not wish anyone to go through it again.
Here I would like to bring the Show subjects from last two weeks. Its just for me not to forget the purpose of our convening in the first place. Padmini and RK - both know pain. Padmini's pain is not being addressed, but RK's pain is. And he hasn't been able to express it.
Our discussion which started with child psychological challenges in coping with society, his own growing hormonal development, his turning into an adult, finding his confidence and security - in material and emotional ways. We then went on impact those people leave around close people because of characteristic aberrations. I cannot remember how, but we soon moved to Indian Men Psyche and Need for Societal reforms. Here I think I was the only one who was stuck more on judicial and enforcement agencies and the need for reforms there.
Its again such a convoluted tryst about me or my family, on why we repeatedly ended up to interact with these agencies. I don't see any reason why things of the most STUPIDEST kind happened to the Gaddams. Anyone can see us and people will know we do not fall into the categories of stupids or the ignorants. Then Why ? Sometimes the only answer I see is Karmic Retribution. We may have collected lot of debt in past life and now we just are repaying it here in this life. Then sometimes, I think may be God is pointing us to go in a direction of life that we are not prepared for and yet we need to tread that. Question to Him is , why did you choose us. Answer is Why not You ? What are you so Selfish about ? So I am still stuck in these answers and questions and general mistrust and disinterest towards world.
This morning however as I recapitulated the entire conversation we had, I felt I needed to say this. We (FG, RP and SD) made our lives, that does not mean we keep quiet and forge ahead. We think it is dignity and poise to go on. Yes, my dear, it is BEAUTY. Our friends admire us for our fortitude and positivity. Its something that makes them happy. And seeing their contentment, makes us happy and we forget our pain. But then aren't we Selfish ? Why can't we use our experience of pain, share it with others and let them know "You are not alone"
I remember it so clearly. Deciding to break the marriage was not something I brooded on days. It was quick like I am always on most matters. What I was brooding on was "if I was ethically right ?" What are social ethics. Just conventions and Purely Relative. What is good to me may not be good for you. Still I needed myself to be ethically and morally correct. My grounds of marriage break was "Incompatibility between the spouses" Temparamental Differences. It was not even Marital Discord. And for God's sake the marriage was just two months old. And one needs at least 1 year of marriage to think of breaking it. Why was I then so determined to achieve the break the way I wanted, with MY TRUTH and no dressing it up ?
My mother opposed my decision as she foresaw social ostracisation for which she was not prepared for. However little did she know that, it was she who inspired me most in deciding to break the marriage. Even to this day, she does not know in formal manner. There are certain things even between a mother-daughter when seen on a woman to woman level, that things are better not vocalized as it gives you pain owing to principles of either. I saw my break as putting an end to her misery as well. It was like liberating even her along with me. She was never supported by her family and they just left her to nurse her wounds and she steeled herself to go ahead with what she had. Yes, she won in life but at what expense ? She never saw Marital happiness. She never could as there were severe temperamental differences between mom and dad.
When you have seen happiness and Love, occasional abuse, mishandling may be forgiven. But when there is no likelihood of happiness ever coming your way, then we are mentally dead anyways.
When I knew that I wanted to do this, I had no backing. Because, I get my Dad's intellect and Mom's actioning strength. Like they saw "there was no way that I could get out of it with my so called illogical reasoning when we start advocating my case.
The Shrink advised me, Marriage is a compromise. You just cannot break marriage on temparamental differences. I was like "ok, you got your fees, and here is my Ta Ta" She was a female.
The gynacologist scolded me. The visit was to get certification that my reproductive system was functional. This was the "other party's demand".
She said "Padhi Likhi ho. Ma Baap ne shaadi karwa di, to tumne shaadi kar li ? Tumhaari akkal kahaan gayi ??" I was ashamed of myself. I couldn't stop myself from crying. It made me more adament that I needed to do what I think is right. She was a female and MY MORAL VOICE.
There was no Google those days in early 2000 year. My brother had started his networking career and the PC was there with Windows 95 may be and my brother created my yahoo mail ID. I guess we were in the pioneer batch then. He had always been wanting to build his life the way he wanted, not following conventions but his own processed thinking. And so I hardly knew what was a computer and what it can do. (Am not a tech-savvy person to this date even as I set up buy-sides and sell-sides to trade in the STP electronic world.)
I just had the Times Of India Newspaper. And in there, I see magically, an article on divorce grounds. I get to know to contesting of divorce, Seperation, Dissolution. Out and Out I get to know, no way I can get my divorce in the Indian Court. However, there was also the case of Renuka Shahane who was a divorcee who ended her marriage on the same reasons like myself. That was something. A morale boost. I am not alone.
The advocate said, its impossible to take your case. No way I can represent this in any manner to the Court. Year not completed. No evidence of Discord. Incompatibilty cannot be proven. The case will go on forever. He was a Man. Of the World. Logical I believed. I read the same in newspaper.
He further suggests "Why don't you do this ? Go to the Police and write that your husband hit you, or has extra-marital"...me, my parents didn't even let him finish. We protested and said, No. No such false allegations.
(Little did I know then that he was suggesting 498A to be slapped by me on my husband. And little did i know that years later, we would be slapped on account of our brother's wife; the same 498A even as we were innocent. Little we knew how much an advocate can mint money in these cases.)
The advocate also said, "Can you say that he is not sexually functioning ?" I was like in splits. Because I did not know what was the truth. My husband accused me of having dysfunctional system, repeatedly and I already felt abused and traumatized. And on top of it the lack of sexual knowledge made me a clueless idiot. I had unburdened all of it with both my parents and they had then both concluded for me that the guy was the one who was not functioning properly. My father was vocal and he wanted me state this as the truth to everyone. However, I knew I was inept to any kind of questioning on these matters even though it was 100% true. I told my parents to an extent it is right, but I would be pushed down with my inability to feel for him. Who will buy that? And in the end it all boils down to what I say from my point. The guy makes things difficult as it is. On top of it, now I feel repelled from him and it feels like a rape each time, or even a prostitute without any pay. And I from society's point of view, as an ideal wife, should not think like I have been thinking. All my ideals around marriage had shattered one by one as if I am plucking out the onion whorls one by one, the onion which held the mystery of Reality. So this path was a No-No for me.
So what did we do ? Ultimately, it was my magical mother. She who was dead opposed to the divorce, but when it dawned on her that I was relentless, she yet again steeled herself with social abandonment, bid bye to her small business at home, and then set out to find people who can achieve out of court settlement. She is not educated, but she is a woman of the world. She had seen her grandfather as one of the village heads and how he used to settle disputes. So she knew thing and on ground, how it works. She was like, "you keep your Dad's intellect, but that is not how the world functions." Beggars are not choosers. So what right I had to even argue what she was saying ? But my discerning and optimistic mind saw some hope. For all these days, I was trapped and saw no light anyways. So let the contest be in Public. Let me steel myself to speak out before people. Let me advocate my own case. Because I am the one who is seeking something.
The Men of the World (not the middle class morality- doodh ke dhule types men, but the Men of soil, the wise old men in their dhoti-kurtas) decided for me. In marriage one of the most important fulfilment is about sexual satisfaction as well. If that cannot happen in fulfilling manner between husband and wife and that too when spouses want it, then there is no point of that marriage. It is a reason for dissolution for the marriage. And why people are afraid to come out in open, it is because of social stigma that gets attached to either of the spouses. But that should not deter you from pursuing your happiness. When pleasure seeps in mutual company, couples tend to create a common ground of compatibility and then begins the marital journey. In your case, there is no pleasure at all. That was something for me. Being ethically right. And there I got it.
Then mom and me became one mind with aim and agenda. Brother joined because he felt it was right. He loved his sister and wanted to remove the pain. Father joined us as head of family although he knew little of these kind of proceedings. Sister was too young even to know what was going on. And the family was harsh enough to ask her to stay back in the Delhi apt all alone while the four of us canvass with people we know and in the state where the marriage happened.
It went on for 6 months, in on and off manner. And ultimately we achieved out of court settlement. The contest out of the court was to achieve "MUTUAL CONSENT divorce". Now mia-biwi raazi, to kya karega kaazi. We filed the case in court on that ground and in another 6 months divorce was granted. It took a entire year and half to end the marriage when the marriage just lasted for 45 days. Sigh!
So I wanted to say, when I asked aloud, the inclusion of PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS in societal reforms:
In India even now, there is no way out of marriages that fail not because of physical abuse, marital discord, infidelity, procreational incapability. And these are many. Where do we go ?
It is the law and its loop holes that forces people to lie and make false allegations. Soon everything becomes murky beween truth and false and no one knows what what was the real picture.
There I shared my experience and if any unmarried girl here would have read all this, she may as well check before entering the marriage what exit routes she has.
Shridevi
