In Touch

        Someone long lost got back in touch recently, more than two of them in fact.

       One I had lived with for years and we were housemates at peace, mostly due to her. She was an oasis in midst of a life of stress and while we couldn’t be said to be close or intimate in sense of spending our leisure together very often ors haring deep secrets of heart, the peace and respite of home life was even more important in retrospect than it seemed to be then, although I was aware of it and very grateful even then.

       In this respect and to a large extent in looks she reminded me of my mother, with a purity and peace that radiated quietly but so very steadily, so very strongly from either of the two that making any disturbance seemed ignoble; in case of my mother, it hurt her, which felt as in; in case of the housemate of my graduate years, it reflected back away from her, while she might or might not be able to provide a solution just as unobtrusively as she lived. I am grateful and glad we are back in touch, even if it does not mean chatting even sporadically much less every day over dinner as we used to.
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       Other two, and perhaps more than two, were lost due more to manipulations on part of someone who would rather everyone else around was miserable and worshiping at his alter, and would not, could not, tolerate any other two be in harmony much less love without him in midst destroying it. He is now gone, and two of those he separated from me using various means are now almost immediately back in touch,to whatever extent they see fit.

       At his express command I had left his home when on brink of what is generally considered adulthood, and again when he repeated the demand with a scenario more to his taste than my first quiet departure which he had been unable to make a scene to his satisfaction. He had therefore pursued me for years through every possible social and other means with people denouncing my not meeting him, not visiting him; my one concession to the social pressure was due to my mother being unable to travel out of her home to meet me any longer, when the abuse of years in physical, emotional and every other aspect including starvation had severed connections of her brain. So he finally was able to succeed in lassoing back the one person who had not been destroyed yet then to his satisfaction, and proceed to remove that blot on his escutcheon by destroying as thoroughly as he possibly could.

       Then came his publicly expressed demand for me to stay away, which surprisingly turned around to another session of public pressure and manipulations to bring me back. This time I was wary of giving another chance and hoped, prayed there would be no contact, no chain of communication. In this latter I probably did not succeed, and he probably did succeed in keeping tabs via various people who let slip some clue in their behaviour or in course of conversation to that effect, however much he warned them to not let me know of the link.

       Funny,someone who claimed to be an aspirant of spiritual life was not only unable to see goodness or tolerate it without it being enslaved to his satisfaction, but also was unable to see the fallacy of the normal conventions of being in touch.Or he saw it, was controlling and manipulating my life and destroying all he could anyway, but the demand to keep in touch expressed publicly was for a public show. Or was it yet another way to isolate me, corner the victim? Either way, it was far from spiritual.
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       When I was told he had passed on finally, it was not about not being in contact or not seeing him for over two decades this time that I was likely to be concerned about. On the spiritual level he always talked of there is no importance of physical existence much less of physical contact, albeit there is such importance given on a social level, and others. Nor did I give quarter to arguments about being in touch because life is short or forgiving because someone is old after all or being friends no matter what the fault or guilt of someone because that is the good way. Or that everyone is guilty, and that is a basis for equality of manifest good and evil.

       As far as guilt and forgiveness go, finally it is of no importance if I forgive someone for it; forgiveness belongs to the same Divine that one’s guilt is relevant to, whoever the victim be. I am thankful if I am able to forget an injury inflicted deliberately, or at any rate get over it in my own being and life. Forgiveness and guilt of someone else is between them and their own soul,the latter being what they should concern about and be wary of inflicting injuries deliberately for.

       And if life is too short, it is so all the more when it is a matter of giving chances over and over to inflict injuries when one has reason to believe that would be the result of being in contact.

       Of course, in his case as in many others being in contact was only marginally –and an extremely narrow margin at that – of relevance when it came to his ability to inflict injury or manipulate or generally exercise powers of various sort for a negative effect on someone else’s life and being.

       But then what is true of negative powers of small is far more so of far superior powers of above.
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       When I left home, I would not have been able to do it if I had thought it was amounting to separation from my mother. But I was as certain of that not being possible as I was of my fragile physical existence and its being in danger if I continued living under his roof – he had left no doubt of the latter, very explicitly expressed in verbal terms as well as in abuse of every possible sort. I was certain I would not be separated from her in mind or heart, soul or spirit. What I had not foreseen before separation was how being close in life makes an ease of communication even in silence, how nourishing and nurturing it was for me and how it would be worse for her than for me. I was worried about her life being in danger living with him when I left, and this fear never left until it became a reality.

       When she left her body she was in my arms as I lifted her for the morning as I had done until then for the precious few months I lived with her years later, and it was grief for me because I no longer could see any purpose in life, her having lost life far too soon. That she was now in a place far better, far superior beyond imagination was never in doubt – her last few months and the place of her passing away established that beyond any possibility of anyreasonable doubt or question.

       The true nature of her extraordinary spiritual level was once for all clear to all but wilfully blind. And those no one can wake up, for they pretend to be sleeping.
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       As for others, finally one has to realise being in touch or contact has finally mattered only in as much as it affects oneself. One need not presume that someone else would suffer only because one has left, separated, refused to keep in touch or desist from any communication.

       Or that it would be necessarily benefic for someone else if one is in touch.
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       Few relationships are lost for lack of physical contact or communication of verbal sort, and that loss is due to both sides living at a level lesser than need be.Relationships of heart and soul and spirit are above it all, and communication of mind is entirely just that. And blood relationships are built into one’s genetic essence, never lost.

       What can be lost is the joy or otherwise of being in contact, much the same way one cannot eat or smell through a wall, but then nor can one receive or inflict infections of physical or mental or any other kind when there is a separation,a distance, a wall. And the latter being an entirely real risk is the reason why sometimes one cannot be in touch, or communication through a chain at a distance. When one is vulnerable, a quarantine is necessary, however much one loses flavours of earthly contact.
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       What is far worse than someone keeping away is someone inviting and manipulating one to brought in communication only to at the receiving end of humiliation or injury. I have cherished my years of solitude for the peace and the benefits of another channel of communion when away from such injuries, and if being in touch with someone amounts to risking one’s being one has to know where the line of safe perimeter is, so one would attempt to keep within it for safety. Of life and mind and spirit and soul.

       One can only risk so far for pleasure of the proven malevolent that have infiltrated one’s life and milieu. It is difficult enough to avoid succumbing to undesirable heritage one has, through bloodline or otherwise, and becoming one of them - which would be handing over victory to dark, and that one ought to avoid at all possible costs.
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        I am glad and grateful to be in touch with those where it would be of benefit to them whether or not it benefit me, and this gladness is hugely benefic by itself to one’s being and life. I hope I know where the line one ought to keep within lies, and stay within.
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Lost Life

 

For years I was unsure if he was living or whether I would know if he were not, so completely I had tried to severe all possible links of communication – not that I was successful, I am sure various people I met and calls I had when I was still answering a landline phone were his attempts to keep tab. Keep tab, I say, rather than interpreting it as his pathetic attempt to keep in touch with a firstborn, with some reason. It was his ego and more, his need of control and more, that prevented him from simply meeting his new relatives rather than send indirect messages after I got married. And that was over two decades ago. 

Not that my marriage had anything to do with our ways parting – on the contrary,when I got the first message from him through his second daughter, asking me to visit after I was married, I turned around and asked her if the demand from him that I keep away had turned around because I was no longer seen as a possible supplicant. She tried to avoid replying, and had to answer in affirmative when I insistently repeated the question. She said yes. 

So I had no reason to rethink of whether or not to meet. And even more recently when I joined facebook and was sent a missive through a young woman, a stranger to me, it was convoluted in that while she informed me it was a plea from an old man in an old people’s home, what I was supposed to do was to contact someone she knew who knew where to find him. So if I did he could deny having made efforts to contact, of course. 

For years, decades, he and his side of relatives had penalised my mother for her lack of doing precisely what was required socially and going with heartfelt goodness of hers that was her way. But when it came to requirements on his parts re dealing with various in laws related though his blood relation females, his ego had made his behaviour vary from merely fall short of propriety to positively, astoundingly weird. So his being unaware that it was up to him to meet the new relatives after he was informed I was married was no surprise. My nightmare would have been his meeting them and regaling them with false stories. If that did not happen, and I am far from sure it did not at that, I have cause to be grateful to heavens for this little bit. 

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When he did pass on recently, I was informed almost immediately, and that was the first time I knew the answer to whether I would know if he did. His life had been long enough, mine destroyed enough and not due to any reluctance on his part to participate in every way possible in the said destruction, for his departure to matter any longer. And yet, it was not a relief or a blankness but an inexplicable sense of loss that seemed to make itself feel if I allowed it. I wondered why, and as usual answer came when question rose. 

Somewhere deep within there still was a child that hoped against hope, in spite of the self that had existed forever and knew better and made me seem old when still a child, and this child still surviving somewhere forgotten and deep had wished for a turn where recognition of good and justice would win, where a parent would finally recognise his wrongs and the deep injuries of the child inflicted unjustly. And this seemed like it was never to happen, time was up. 

But I had never expected it to happen while he did live, never in my life; in fact somewhere in early seventies he had assured me publicly that if I had been target of injustice on his or anyone else’s part that would not amount my being bestowed with any redressal of injuries or injustice. So it was surprising there was still a child somewhere deep within that was disappointed at this passing away of someone unjust who had never acknowledged it. 

Then again, perhaps that is a wonderful thing, to have this child exist within, and not be a fossil cynic, dried old know all incapable of wonder. To that I have to thank our mother for not having the children die within us, and nurturing them with all her sunny love and cheer. 

Tears this time, unlike when she had gone and I couldn’t think of any reason to live or what to do with life, were about a cry of this child, asking why one had been persecuted so much, what had one ever done to deserve it. But then Mgm arrived and said, what made you think persecution is deserved? Of course! I had known all about the victims of the last century, and yet, the child expected justice, unlike the know all self that did not. 

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He had thrown me out with repeated beatings over four months and demands of “leave my house” – all because I would not give up academic aspirations at eighteen only to be a slave at his beck and call. My mother had exposed his hypocrisy by demanding he get me married immediately if that was the problem according to him, and assured him she would see to it I agreed. He had gone pale she said,and stuttered with “how can you say that, it might take twenty years to find a groom” upon which she had asked what he expected me to do during those twenty years, was I to be a house servant for him and no life of my own? He had answered he wanted me to sacrifice my life to help him carry the load of his family. 

And there had been a relative witness to this who could report about it, it was far from a private conversation, rather it was his attempt to beat her down into submission to make me give up my aspirations. But they had been desperate effort to survive rather than aspirations. 

I had left after one morning when he banged my head on the wall repeatedly demanding I leave, and worse. For years thereafter he persecuted me socially and in every way he could, with occult power to destroy my life and achievements through years as he gained power. After my mother passed away, he had never even conducted a funeral ceremony, not that I am aware of. So all that talk of duty was only for enslaving others while he flitted about contacting old girlfriends who had no intention of meeting him, he had no duty even of conducting a funeral for a wife and mother of his son and daughters. 

And he had not given up on destroying me at that, managing significantly more after she died and I had achieved much academically. I was willing to give him all the satisfaction by dying, too, but that was not good enough. What he needed were victims alive that could be tortured. 

So there was a public scene of throwing me out this time a few days after I was out of the hospital, something he had missed the first time I had left, and more. He not only took out a legal notice to the effect that if I ever came anywhere near he would see to it I shall suffer, but went about seeking anyone I knew to tell of it. Eventually someone did inform me of the fact, and as far as I was concerned it could not be better. 

For years I had been persecuted with people going on and on about why don’t I see him, couldn’t I admit people could change, he was really not as bad as I thought, I should not fear anything so much, and more such trash. Trash, because in this case it was false. People assumed a parent could not be bad, and this was perhaps generally true, but not universally. Now this explicit notice and demand I stay away played in my favour, and perhaps he had failed to realise as much quite then. 

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When I finally met someone that made my fear of marriage vanish, I got married, taking care my relatives were not informed. I am not sure I succeeded in this. At the wedding if anyone asked who present was from my side I informed them my husband was on my side. This was all new to all concerned present and I am thankful for whatever power of heaven made them refrain from questioning on the whole. 

So when later messages and manipulations began to make me meet him, I was not about to oblige. I had to protect someone innocent from this hell of relatives the poor man had inherited due to marrying me. Those I would have liked to present him to were all gone, and others I was unsure of, and then there were those that had not acknowledged my mother’s passing on even with a short sentence of “sorry for your loss”, which was a major lapse in propriety for those that had penalised her lifelong for not giving small traditional gifts to visitors. I had no wish to inflict any of them on him, certainly. 

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Now I hear about his final time, and it is horrifying, what little I hear. 

The relatives he attempted to placate by victimising his own family, his children born of his beautiful, intelligent, educated wife of many achievements whom he chose to marry rather than the girlfriend he had been involved with, the relatives who had hated his wife and never given up on complaining to him about his wife or children no matter how much they saw him thrash and injure them, those relatives – his relatives – left his body in the room where it was waiting for his son’s arrival even as they crowded into another room, gossiping with one another and demanding service from the daughter he had thrashed blind to please them. 

In this the relatives had been consistent, I am told. They had asked the niece to come with her brother, but not bring their brother, the link in the relations, while he lived. They wanted to meet someone who could be useful to them. 

So he had destroyed a loving wife that anyone could and did envy, a marriage and a home and children that could all have prospered and blossomed brilliantly – for what? Placating the relatives who did not want him finally, but wanted his son,and demanded service from his daughter while he lay in another room – alone? 

Was it Munchhausen by proxy, forcing his life and his family into a position where he could beg for pity from all and sundry rather than ignore or deal with their envy of his having a brilliant and happy, loving and beautiful family? 

Or was it merely that some people are born so unfortunate they destroy anything good they find, albeit having hunted it before so they can have it so they can destroy it rather than benefit? 

I don’t know the answers. 

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I keep looking to see, don’t I have anything positive, anything of a good memory, of love or even concern or support? No, he had not admitted my achievement when I came back, post doctorate and a faculty position – he had instead praised a niece of his for her skill in making a mix flour pancake. Fair enough, making pancakes is an achievement and if he thought it was superior and failed to make me see it, not his fault, even though for years he had remarked on his dissatisfaction about my grades and academic performance that had never been good enough for him. “I expected you to top the exam, and you did not, but it is ok” was post school; “she is no scholar, how could she get a scholarship except by lying about her father’s being poor? I could write to her university and stop her scholarship” when I was doing graduate school in another city on my own after leaving home (my mother had assured him he ought to do just that, and that I deserved to lose if I had lied, rather than pleading with him not to do so). After I had my doctorate there had been no celebration, either. 

But fair is fair and if anyone thought it was all equal whether one went through years of stress and effort and managed to have a small success in academic career or one had an affair and an mtp at fifteen before marrying and being a mother of two before twenty and could make pancakes, fair enough. Only, why not be satisfied with the pancake maker as a permanent companion available on demand, rather than making convoluted approaches to demand that one legally warned to stay away with dire consequences should after all visit nevertheless (no legal assurance of the previous notice having been vacated, at that, much less any apology for victimisation and brutal treatment), just so everyone around could see that the daughter would not see the father, rather than that the father had brutally hit her repeatedly demanding that she leave his house when she was only eighteen? 

Because the so called or professed praise of the pancake making niece or a profession of equality was a fraud, that was why. And fraud he was through and through. 

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I wish there was one good memory, I wish this muck would go away. I am afraid the only way for it to go away is to stop about him, forget him and his ilk, get over the fact of the bloodline and make sure one does not take that turn of character in any way. 

Is there no good memory, no positive fact to mention? 

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A couple of years ago on the internet it was mentioned Mercury was visible and easy to spot being next to Venus and Spica, and I made efforts to see it. Aftera few days of attempts and clouds defying, suddenly one could see all three clearly. That was the first time in my life I had been aware of seeing Mercury, and loved it. Going up with binoculars and looking up was a major occupation that winter, and it went on well into April, when the brilliant planets – Jupiter had been visible with its four major satellites, and was a joy every day – began to set. Thereafter clouds interfered, and we travelled, and more, disrupting the routine hours on the terrace. Now, there are brilliant lights around, making it far more difficult. 

But that first time when I saw Mercury, I had thought of him one day pointing at a bright planet very close to horizon, and saying “Mercury is difficult to spot, so I am not sure, but that might be it”. 

This was some time around mid sixties. Later, beginning '67 or so onward if not earlier, communication was much worse and his agenda of victimising me had been not merely decided but conveyed to me clearly via the one person who was the link in the relationship - as every mother is between her child the father of the child. So when I spotted a comet in eastern skies in mornings sometime around '70 give or take a couple of years, he was surprised I had spotted it and knew about it before he did and taken this casually enough that I had not informed him. But I had not only assumed he would have seen it if I had, which I did, rather it was difficult to communicate with someone who had made rules towards depriving and victimising me and made them known to all and sundry. So the sharing of thrill of looking above was lost. Besides, that was far from something that can be said to be only between him and his chidren, much less him and me. 

I remember hearing a conversation between my mother and her mother – grandmother had a major hand in bringing us up, caring for us, and more – to the effect that days were getting longer and sun was now setting more towards north. I looked, and of course it was clear, and I thought, I knew this, I have known this for over a year that this happens. I was six. 

That was before high rise buildings obscured the then completely visible horizon. And Mercury was the only positive memory of the man who departed unwanted by his premarital blood relatives after he had destroyed his marriage and wife and children to satisfy them. 

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Someone who cares will come running to see you against all obstacles as and when one is in need, and if unable to come will at least call, write, something, directly and risking possible hurt to one's ego and more. A convoluted approach to make someone contact one by various people being used for the purpose is indicative of one's ego, while keeping tabs with anonymous calls or through other people is one's pathetic need of control. If one breaks with someone one ought to know one may not meet or hear from them ever again, for death waits for no one, and if and when one may turn around the other might just not be there. And if someone makes their wishes to cut communication or contact clear, dominating by using such contacts to break a distance does not indicate caring if it happens when one needs it rather than the other person; one might be honest and say one needs the other rather than saying one cares, if one has not shown concern in any form other than breaking or contacting at one's own will and refrained from risking hurt to ego. 

In this someone like him is far more pathetic than can be imagined - for he was married to someone who was able to transform from an achiever to a caring, loving parent, transcending ego. His apparent victory in destroying her perhaps brought him close to those that saw her as wrong in any way, which usually is convenient, for if one allowed oneself to admit that the victim was not at fault one has to choose between doing something even as simple as taking side of the victim, usually not safe socially, or admitting one's cowardice. This is usually not unknown to anyone, one's own courage being less evident than lack thereof, but most attempt to cover it up by going with how the victim was wrong, and forming bonds with those in power, preferably with wealth that can be shared, and call it tolerance when they have to suffer ignominy due to their choices. 

I wish it were different, but if wishes were concordes one would lack time enough to ride, for life is all too short. 

And tomorrow is promised to no one. 

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Her Eyes For His Rupee, For Snack of An Afternoon

I still remember waiting for mother when she was supposed to go to join her spouse – so little parental in his behaviour, one has more than averse feeling about saying father – and she had not arrived well past midnight, since her plane from Delhi to Mumbai had yet to leave on its flight from Lucknow for Delhi. Nearby also waiting was the famous family of a superstar, with more than one star right there, the superstar incidentally born a day before my mother. We left to return in the morning while they waited, their awaited father was only to be taken home, and my mother’s plane would not leave till later in the morning anyway. When we came to see her in the morning, she looked exhausted and harassed and I wished I could gather her up and comfort her and make her safe. But that was not to be, she was going to join her spouse, and nothing deterred her in this ever.

Couple of months or so later, two of the siblings were to join them, and I saw them and went to spend the day with them, at the hotel where they waited to catch the plane the next morning. That is when Sgk informed me she was going blind in one eye, and if the other eye behaved the same way she would be totally blind.

I was horrified at the casual way I was being informed of this, but this was the way life was in the parents’ family. Else no one could live under the roof with him hitting anyone he chose however much he chose, and we simply had to live in spite of it, and find what life and joy and peace we could. Mostly it was provided by mother, and her endurance and keeping cheer through it all had guided us through life into adulthood. But that day I was the only adult in that room, and the other two were still teenagers, as was the one left back at her hostel.

I went on to continue life as usual until Deepaawalie, when I went to visit them – secretly, since this was not supposed to be allowed under his rule, but he was out of the country for a couple of years and the three teenagers living at the house by themselves. Sgk was yet to return, and meanwhile I had talked to a colleague in Mumbai before going to Delhi; her mother was a doctor, and it so happened she was well placed and was able to discern the problem when I took Sgk to see her after her return. Sgk had come along with me patiently, she had already seen a couple of opticians via her father’s underlings and her friends, and they had advised her to eat eggs and almonds for her ocular health. She had little hope.

We were directed to AIIMS and we went one morning. Sgk was supposed to  have dilated pupils for examination and it took well over an hour for her, unlike expected ten minutes or so for most. Then she was taken in and it took them over an hour, after which we were asked to return in the afternoon. I was not letting my heart hope yet. They examined her extensively in the afternoon and towards evening is when I was called in and informed by a taciturn senior surgeon that she had to be admitted immediately.

For the first time I had hope, surging through.

I said we needed an evening home, and they arranged to have her admitted day after, informing me that she had to be allowed to do as little as possible, no movements.

We went home. The first thing was to inform various people, next, arrange for money, and then she was admitted. The surgery went through and her eye was saved, and I was at the hospital through the day every day for the next three weeks or so until she was allowed to return home with further instructions of as little movement as possible for few weeks.

A friend of hers meanwhile had been taking care of household and kitchen,  and she gave me a small clue to what could have caused the detachment of retina. She was very badly beaten up one day in full view of everyone, said the friend. So what else is new, I thought.

He, the father of the family, had written to her saying he had cursed her when she “misbehaved” and this is what had caused her to go through the blindness and the surgery, bu thad now withdrawn his curse. She was pathetic asking me over and over what could she have done so bad as to be cursed thus. I was furious, but this fraud was his usual behaviour, ever seeking to browbeat and dominate and using all sorts of lies and hypocrisy to pull everyone else down. I simply said you know him, ignore him. She knew him better, knew his occult powers to damage, perhaps more.

It was to be years, over a decade or so, before I began to know what had caused the injury to her eye, and while it was the humongous beating she received from her father, more than usual, it was more than that. She was beaten up well past her having been operated on for a detached retina due to his beating her, and this went on for years, with slaps and fists punching her in the eye operated on. The story of one such beating involved an aunt and a cousin, one that ought to have been a brother but was not.

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Over a decade later I was visiting him, the father of the family, him having moved away from Delhi leaving his now battered almost to complete incapacity our mother and having battered the daughter with fists punching in the same eye that had to be treated surgically periodically, till he could no longer batter them with any fresh pleasure, and had to find his cheap thrills elsewhere. I was visiting, because I had given up not seeing him when my mother was incapacitated.

One evening as I returned after a walk, there were a few people in his living room, and I could see his “friend” with her husband; I assumed the young male sitting with them was one of their own. After a few minutes of my sitting in silence the young man asked me “ - ,don’t you recognise me?” I looked and said, now I do. He was a nephew of the father, son of the eldest of his four younger sisters, a few months older to me.

After they left he, the father, queried if I had really not recognised him, and I explained I had problem quite often when I saw people unexpectedly and out of place. This seemed to displease him, and he said the cousin knew me only because he expected me, with my being left to wonder what the problem was. I wouldn’t have a problem with him not acknowledging me.

Next day or so he informed me he had talked it over with his nephew who had informed me I had been good to him when he had come looking for a job and for guidance. I had forgotten about that, but again wondered why a father needs to know from a nephew about his own progeny being good.

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When I returned to Delhi I mentioned the incident to Sgk, and wondered why the small incident had blown out of proportion. That is when she began to tell me about the visit from the second aunt, mgb, and the said cousin svo, who had visited for a month or so –and the story of how she was beaten up even after she had been blinded.

It took her several years of telling, possibly due to trauma she herself experienced in recalling it all, but just as much because this is how she usually recounts a tale – feather by feather until suddenly one sees the claws and more.

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The aunt and her nephew, both earning and both in need of a holiday, had come for a month long visit. During which they led the household through a dance catering to them, and complaining about what they missed. Since they were seen as poor, and the severely deprived members of the household of the supposedly well to do brother and uncle were seen as privileged, the household and particularly the women supposedly responsible were living on knife’s edge for the month.

Sgk had taken over the responsibility of the household after I left, my having refused it and being determined to go on with my academic life (at eighteen years of age) resulting in my being beaten for four months with “get out, leave my house” until I did leave, so persecuting me was his occupation then on in a different setting with the whole world as stage while he needed another victim in addition to the beautiful, intelligent, loving and patient wife he had victimised for the duration of his marriage. Sgk accepted his logic of leaving school and doing housework while preparing for a career in medicine, and became his next victim until he left over a decade later to live free from family and introduce himself to his wife’s hometown as her husband – she had been known for her beauty and her achievements and her virtues galore.

So the visit that year went on with the aunt ruling the roost and demanding services, the real hostess my mother being treated by the sister in law as an interloper with no rights, and Sgk treated like a personal servant paid by the brother explicitly for the purpose of catering to the visitors that were his premarital relatives. Sgk attempted to do her best and maintain peace even as she managed her academic life – she was in college – with housecleaning, cooking and practically all other housework along with catering to visitors’ demands and needs.

But the visitors gave no quarter to the fact of what she could afford on what little household management amount was doled out to her, or to the fact that we had routines very different from what they were used to, or claimed they were used to. One such difference was eating habits – we ate lunch if we were at home, those in school or college ate only if they had been given money by him for the purpose, and dinner was quite often bread and milk, householder women being far too exhausted at the end of the day. Sgk was managing to cook for them to feed them lunch and dinner, along with breakfast for the father – none of us ate that meal as a rule – but this was not enough for the visitors. They were used to snacks after lunch, within a couple of hours or so. This simply was not a routine of our life and she was severely tried.

So the father of the house came home one day to hear his nephew complain about lack of snacks while he was hungry after a lunch – that the lunch was sumptuous beyond what they were used to was of no account to either of them – and finished the complaining session with “I had to spend a rupee from my own earnings to buy bread”.

Sgk, held to account for this lapse as a major sin, boiled over and asked who was dying without a snack. After all the father had never ever asked, much less cared, if anyone he was responsible for had eaten or starved. As long as he got his own food the rest of the family could starve or beg, or bleed hand and foot in winter for lack of warm clothes and proper footwear.

So this concern of his for his nephew and his sister seemed rather extraordinary. And it was, at that. It wasn’t that he cared for any of his parents’ descendents, after all he had never sent them any money much less shown any concern for this nephew’s mother when she burned, instead stating flatly that her husband was responsible now she was married. His whole focus in this argument about the nephew’s one rupee was about nailing a beautiful daughter into guilt and permanent submission of soul and spirit.

He blew up at her answering instead rather than offering the apology and promise to behave according to the demands of his relatives, and thrashed her, as they watched. She screamed, and this went on for a while, with her attempting to shield her face. That was not to be – her hands were held so she could only be hit, and the father hit her on and on and on. None of the visiting relatives stepped in the midst or stopped him, much as they would like to claim it was not their intention this should happen – but while it was happening they had every possibility of stopping it, and certainly made no move to do so.  Perhaps they had forgotten she had been blinded by his beating her previously, and had to have had serious surgery to be able to see at all, instead of being blind. Or, worse, and quite likely at that for them, they were subconsciously bent on her being blind and beaten until she was blind and pathetic instead of a beauty like her mother whom they hated so very much.

The younger sister took her away to her own hostel when it was over, telling the aunt to feel satisfied with taking over the household. She stayed away for a few days and returned, traumatised more by our mother crying piteously as she was being taken away, saying “don’t leave me alone, not you, at least” – having been by now beaten by her husband into a brain damaged state that we were yet to discover the full horror of.

So Sgk returned and resumed her load of housework, academics, and more. And her eyes suffered as her supposedly responsible father ignored, and felt no compunction about having slapped her in spite of her being in danger of becoming blind again.  And this was not the last time he did it, either. 

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He died recently and it was her husband who cared for him, while she catered to the same aunts and cousins and more with their never ending demands even through the funeral – before he died, they asked her to visit with her brother but not bring her father, the link of the relations, with her; so it really had never been about caring for him, as far as they were concerned, but making demands on his resources that he allowed only as far as nothing was taken from him.

Sgk was catering to the aunts and the cousin who had caused her to be mercilessly beaten in spite of risk of becoming blind again, for the one rupee he had to spend on his own food for a snack a couple of hours after lunch, and through the funeral she had been ill with fever even as she cooked for them and served them, each with separate demands.

Why does she do it? Is it because she is all too aware of how powerful they are as small time sources of occult power that can hit and destroy with no positive power ever? Why had she chosen to keep in touch with them, even as I finally gave up post their never acknowledging my mother’s death as a matter of grief for me, even as a matter of common courtesy on a minimum level? They who had always penalised my mother for her lack of social propriety in not giving that small gift to a visitor.

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What we have never turned around to ask is – in all this, where and what was the role of the cousin that was responsible for his uncle beating a young helpless woman into certainty rather than mere risk of permanent damage to her eyes, well past his having beaten her into blindness in the first place? He, the young male who was himself earning unlike the cousin whose eyes he caused a further damage to for sake of a rupee of his earning he spent on a snacking need, he was in position of a brother as far as social norms go, he was and is supposed to be a protector for his sister.

Why did he not stop his uncle from hitting the young helpless overburdened girl? Why did he not get between them, protect the sister, hold the beating hands away?

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Such males in nominally human forms do NOT qualify for the epithet “man”.

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