Don't Cry, It Is Not your Fault!
Some memories stay subterranean, not flowing
away with time because they are important moments, when one may have been hurt
or frightened, so they need to stay below to let one live on. Hurts and fears
of early childhood change lives and characters of people, forever sometimes;
but the causes remain hidden because they need to and the changed characters
and lives are taken by others as natural. It is only with luck if sometimes for
some people things change and then someone begins to wonder – why was it this
way and not that, why did one not take the usual default easy natural way to
begin with, why the detour way over the peaks only to reach a valley where
others arrive so easily and so early, and one has managed to arrive too late
for anything but the dusk, the late autumn?
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I wondered for a while after realising the
change in me, why I had not seen the various different characteristics of
genders as natural, why I had not only assumed but fought for the rights of
everyone to be as they like, why everyone else saw it was easier to go along
the usual characteristics and I did not, and why the change now. It is not that
we two had previously lacked the socially specified traits and acquired them
after being together, if you don’t have it you don’t; so the traits, the
preferences, the characteristics had to be there deep and suppressed, and came
to surface only with a possibility of survival.
And then a memory surfaced – the early lack of
a protective male in the life of the family I grew up in, the protection and
provisions that were mostly male responsibilities in other families being on
female shoulders in ours, the male of the family being present only as a terror
if and when he was, and being usually absent at most weekends when he would
call up to inform he was staying over at a friend’s – unless they planned it so
that friend visited with her family and other few male friends in tow so our
mother provided food for the company, and our grandmother tried her best to
protect the three little girls from the visiting males. For us the protection
and provisions, toys and food, entertainment and most needs came from the two
strong women, and only terror came from the male of the family.
We learned not to speak about it and put it
away from our minds and surface consciousness, following the example of the two
who brought us up. But now I remember how we silently waited for the sound of
his scooter and relaxed when it was certain he must have gone to stay over for
the night, hopefully for the whole weekend, with his friend. Then it was time
for joy, cautiously, unless he called – and then it was joy until he did
arrive. If we were lucky that would be Monday evening.
Since children take as natural whatever the
circumstance they grow up in, it is only when I saw other males, demonstrative
and loving with their children, that I would realise what we had missed, but
would not put it to myself in that form quite – I would merely think, this is
good, I approve of such men. Subconscious sees to it that one should not allow
a crack, a chink even, in the armour
one developed to survive.
Now we are a family, and I cannot imagine
myself happy separated from my partner, and I wonder at the life of the woman
who had to choose, between her man being home and having peace and happiness
for herself and her children. Not that she ever had a choice. The choice lay
between her husband and his friend – if she or her family or her other friends
did not wish him to be there he would be with us, and terror let loose.
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I remember one day, I might have been about
sever and half or so, when he locked up the rest of them in a room the whole
day, and lectured to me about how love was all trashy nonsensical ideas and the
only thing important was getting along and ahead in the world by following its
rules. I remember very strong reaction, a definite knowledge within me, thinking
– this is wrong, he is wrong, this is not true. Did not say it of course – that
would have meant being beaten black and blue, with no one to mitigate much less
save one, but the knowledge within was strong.
Now when I remembered it, it is with the added
realization – what did he think he was doing? The people locked up were a pair
of very small children, aged less than five and two respectively, an old
handicapped woman who did more than half of all housework and especially
cooking for us in addition to protecting us, a heavily pregnant woman who
worked at home and went out to earn as well in addition to doing all shopping
single-handedly – there was no car, and she brought all milk and all groceries
on foot for years until I was grown up enough to share – and the room they were
locked in that day was just a room with no attached bathroom, even. They had
not even drinking water the whole day, and the two starving little children
were as silent as the old woman and the pregnant woman, for fear of the room
being opened just to batter them individually, and the focus of the two adult
women must have been on not losing the fetus through battery.
I have no memory of how long it went on, but I
do remember he ate lunch – they were locked up after they had cooked perhaps,
but they had not eaten until the evening when they were let out.
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If that day had an effect on the two children
they did not mention it and nor did anyone else. I don’t know if they forgot
immediately, since it was not that unusual. Being locked up, or being thrown
out – and wandering the neighbourhood for several hours at night due to being
thrown out, or standing for several hours holding one’s toes, and various other
such diktats was not every day but nor was most of it infrequent.
But recently I wondered how much of an effect
did the little unborn one had, if he would come up with it under hypnosis. Mgm
told me about Smg and self weeping without knowing they were, in two different
continents; they were both successful in professions and had managed to set
their own households up early enough, as they wished, and had emigrated to find
ease of life and wealth. Why they of all the people would be thus afflicted, it
had to be only one clue – the memories they had suppressed, because they were
too small when it all happened and they needed to forget that day for sheer
need to survive; and later no one brought it up.
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That day, the most horrendous in all of
memory, began more normal for a Sunday than most of our days, for all that. Our
loving and protecting and caring Grandmother had been now left behind, back
where she came from in our hometown, and we were all the more vulnerable.
Mother cooked and did all housework and taught those of us that would be
taught, told stories and soothed us and so forth – on every other day. But Sundays,
cooking a big ceremonial lunch he wanted and getting through the lunch was the
big deal for the day. And if it all went smoothly then that day he would have
failed in hitting at least one person, so he would be on the lookout for an
opportunity. We would know this subconsciously, so we were generally
extraordinarily careful and quiet.
We did not know it then, but the reason he was
no longer visiting his friend on weekends was that he had been most explicitly,
most unceremoniously, thrown out by her grown up son, who decided they would go
out after all without him after having invited him to go out with them in the
first place. So he had gone across the city in killing heat on his scooter only
to find a locked door, and being told by her in a careless manner after having
waited for several hours without a drop of water in that heat outsider her
door, that they had gone after all, without waiting – and by her belligerent
son who came forth to ask, what was he going to say, it was him who had
insisted they leave.
A man is either brave enough to risk a fight
with a grown up strapping young male taller than himself, or coward enough to
take it out on his own wife and small children who cannot leave him without
risking being in danger of being burnt alive – of which he had frequently
threatened and everyone knew he was more than capable of it, too – and this man
spurned by his friend carelessly and by her son belligerently was not only a
coward, he was the dregs of all cowards. He was looking for an opportunity to
thrash someone and take out his humiliation on someone innocent and helpless in
his hands.
That opportunity came easily
enough – a favourite, pretty younger daughter, who was all of eight by now, was
late coming back from playing with a friend, and the harassed mother scolded
her for causing her – the mother – to be severely abused for this (we were used
to the most horrible abusive words all through growing years).
And so the beating began. It began with
screaming, slaps, and kicks, with all possible horrible abusive words flowing
all the while. When later I saw films of Nazi treatment of their victims, it
was all very familiar – we had not only watched it in person some of us have
experienced it first hand, only the perpetrator was supposed to be our
protector, our father, and we were his blood too, so it was more horrible than
any nazi atrocity – not less; there was no running away or hiding, no separate
country even in a dream. If we were lucky we would be like her, but then what
would life bring us? Life seemed without hope and one had to be tenacious to
hold on.
He began with screaming, slaps, and kicks,
with all possible horrible abusive words flowing all the while. After a few
moments she was down on the floor and not trying to save herself any more – and
he went on kicking her in head, abdomen, heart, groins, legs, face, and on and
on. She just cried helplessly for all of that time, and he kicked. This went on
for half an hour while we, the four children, watched, sitting at the dining
table, and she writhed in pain not five feet from where we were.
We were quiet, shocked and in horror, with no
clue as to when it would stop, if was going to stop, no idea what to do without
it getting worse. It was only more than two decades later that I realised I had
felt guilty all those years for not getting in between, not protecting her. It
took well over another decade before I could even excuse myself, have mercy on
myself, piteously thinking – I was only eleven, it was not my fault, being
scared. Here was a man taking out his having been an observer of the ’46
Calcutta massacre on us, which he had felt brave watching although he did
nothing then to help anyone. How could a little child – and eleven does seem
little indeed, now - face such horror without fear, much less combat it?
But
this forgiving or even mitigating argument came more than three decades too
late, for one’s well-being and life – all this while I had held myself guilty
of not defending, saving her from him, since at eleven – no, even at ten – I
was treated by everyone as an adult for all purposes of carrying heavy burdens
(though of course not for any privileges), which simply meant no benefits of
childhood, or any other sort. One such benefit is lack of responsibility when
one is forced into such horrors as a victim or as a witness, and thinking of
myself as an adult I never forgave myself until recently when it dawned on me I
was not grown up then, it was as forgiveable for me to be sitting petrified as
it was for the other three.
Eventually he stopped getting his sensational
pleasure so he stopped. Then he ate his usual full Sunday lunch which she had
cooked before the horror began, she had even served it, while we were ordered
to eat with him and she served – as usual. As usual she ate later, and I, the
eldest, sat with her, trying to see if there was anything I could do. Served
her whatever she would accept, talked to her. We knew something had become
worse, and did not know if this was the expected routine while the chosen
victim varied according to whim.
Later in the evening we went out to watch some
program, walking a few miles each way, and she was silent the whole way, unlike
her usual attempts to make everyone happy. She stopped at the chemists to get
“saccharin”, and did not sleep even at midnight – which was not unusual for her
or me. That day might very well have been the last time, though, that I slept
before her.
Next morning she was sleeping in a small room
we had designated study room, and would not wake up. He kept sending me to wake
her up, and then he must have found her suicide note – he called for an
ambulance and sent me to wait at the corner to guide it, where I waited for an
hour or longer. I returned, and he called then, and it came soon enough. Now
thinking over I don’t know if he sent me so I would be out of the way while he
did something he needed me not to witness, and called for the ambulance only
after I returned.
In the hospital when various acquaintances
visited he told them he was furious with her for being neither punctual nor
neat, nor following “rules of the world”.
It took me another four decades
to get over the anxiety that I would feel when things were not neat around me,
and suddenly I realised I had to get over the one factor to find my own level
of comfort, which was the subconscious effect of his lie that day when he
excused his beastly, evil behaviour.
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I don’t know if the three of them remember
anything, or they have pushed it too far below into subconscious to be able to
deal with it, just so they could survive. I only know that they have not
distanced from either him or even his “friend”, and our mother – perhaps I
should say, my mother – is dead. I don’t know if they prefer to forget her,
preferring peace over pain, but I do know that they really don’t know her. The
younger they are the more they think of her as useless victim, and more they
are led by him to think of me as someone who left out of need to get away from
them, even her, who needed to be his type – and they treat me accordingly. Hostage
syndrome at its most vicious version they live.
With all the beating kept on getting – for it
did not stop after that day, until another decade or more, only it was limited
to previous levels – she lost the connection at neck between her brain and her
body, and she withered away in the most horrible way possible. I was not around
because I had been thrown out, since I had intervened if he tried to beat her
after that day, getting bodily in the middle and facing him while he was
wielding a weapon, hammer or something similar.
Her attempted suicide had not deterred him
from his need to rage and batter, there were other days, and if I was around I
intervened from then on, which resulted in my being not only battered severely
but being marked for being treated as an enemy, being given the least possible
that was legally due and being visibly deprived compared to other children,
having not only torn clothes and slippers but bleeding knees and feet and
elbows through winters for years, and then being kicked out at eighteen after a
four month stint of “get out, get out, leave my home” accompanied by having my
head hit on the wall or door and starving, and finally, the coup de grace, a
threat of an attempt of rape acted out by him personally with a substantial
part of family looking on, subsequent to a severe beating. That was one time
classmates asked how I got a mark, and I was unable to admit it was a beating –
I had no wish to break into tears, since I was loved by those girls.
When I left, I was glad I had had scholarships
(beginning at twelve when fees were more than one rupee they had been till then
– primary school was eleven paise – and the scholarship of ten rupees was well
over the six rupees fee) all along and had gone to the poorest schools
possible, so his having taken all my scholarship money, and too my earnings
form odd jobs during three years of college -
all of that amounted to my not having owed him for even my food, much
less anything else.
It took years, over a decade, of marriage – I
married late, I was afraid of it, since everyone told me over and over how much
I was like him and how little like her, and yet deep within I am her and always
knew it – and a wonderful partner, before I could afford to let my hard,
defensive shell not keep me away from the heart and an inner being that is
nothing like him (or his sister who asked a ten year old niece, of her own
blood, if her mom thought her father had a filthy relationship with another
woman). I am deeply glad of this, and it is not mere wishful thinking or claim
– I see the difference of how I have dealt with various trials not in social
settings with a consideration towards how one looks to others, but within where
it matters. I don’t know if I am as good as she was, but then that is one of the
stars over the bridge to another world.
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