अनकही #01

Children running across corridors, refusing to finish their homework, refusing to slow down, refusing to listen to any reasoning, eight hours of this every day. Of children talking back without any fear. But Gauri is used to this, she has been left unheard, and has been disrespected. Almost a decade later now, Gauri carries a wisdom that her experiences have taught her, a strength she has snatched from inside herself, and a determination she never leaves the house without. 

Gauri Singh hails from the quiet backstreets of Badalpur in New Dehli and like many 16-year-old girls like her, was a bundle of dreams and untapped potential while she was coming of age. But unlike those girls she idolised, her life came to a complete standstill when she was married off at the age of 18, her mother’s breast cancer forcing her family to let go of all the liabilities in the house. Before she got married though, Gauri, like every other marriage she has seen, was measured against stacks of rupee notes as her in-laws decided her monetary value in the traditional Indian practice of dahej or dowry. Her father, an immigrant working outside India, had promised to send Gauri off with Rs 5 lakh rupees in her bank account, and an additional Rs 10 lakh rupees and Gold jewellery for the satisfaction of her future parents. But this incessant need of weighing Gauri’s weight in Gold would only be the first of the troubles that she would go through in the next decade.

A young new bride navigating her final teenage years in a man she had met only once before and in a house she had never stepped foot in, Gauri was the target of Domestic Violence on all fronts, from her very first day. Forced to wake up at 5 AM daily, she would not be allowed to take any breaks until 3 PM and was told to work till midnight, till the very last person of a family of 9 had taken to bed. Dictated by her mother-in-law, she cleaned the house five times each day, each week—once with salt water, once using detergents, twice with a dry cloth and once with just water. Lathered in sweat, and sometimes blood from the cuts on her hand, she was made to carry boxes of dirty clothes, rugs and utensils on her back despite the availability of younger family members or machines to aid her. Even when the sun would shine like Titan’s fiery wheel at noon in peak summer, Gauri was forbidden to switch on the ceiling fans of the house, because they did not want her to add burden to the electricity bill of the month. Such draining routines lead to Gauri facing serious health issues as she approached her mid-20s including a lack of blood and severe fatigue. But this did not earn her any bit of sympathy from her family-in-law and was rather coined ‘unessecarily dramatic’ for throwing unreal tantrums around the house. For weeks at length Gauri would go without medicines, inhabiting a feverish body that has been sucked of its strength to fight, closed off from seeking any medical treatment. 

Not only was Gauri cut off from medical and physical support, but she was also alienated from any funds and finances the family harboured. Repeatedly, she had been denied any access or information about her bank accounts, and when one winter evening she accidentally laid hands on a fallen bank passbook, she was pushed down the bed, where she crashed on top of a glass table, by her husband. This caused her to sustain some serious injuries: broken limbs, gashes on her head, and some internal bruises. It was then that her parents understood the severity of the situation and started sending for her clothes, bags and sometimes, common grocery and sanitary items. When I spoke to Gauri for the first time she realised that she was being made the victim of gross abuse. She recounted to me the first of many incidents where her life was threatened by her husband and his family. The family was en-route to a wedding, all 9 of them packed in an already teeming train department when her sister-in-law had pushed Priti out of the train, which was already gaining momentum. As she told me then the horrid injuries to her knees, she unconsciously moved her hand near her kneecap, reliving the moments she thought she had lost everything she had ever held precious. 

She spent the next 1.5 years under the careful protection of her parents, as members of her husband’s family continued to harass her by threatening her to come back home and making false promises of change in her husband’s behaviour. Tired of daily conflict, and resolved to not be a burden on her ageing parents, Gauri returned to her in-laws in the hopes of living a better life. But that was not the case. On a warm June evening, Gauri discovered her husband’s infidelity. When she confronted him, she was called dark and ugly, fat and unfit, poor and uneducated. It was that night that her physical abuse turned into blatant sexual violence, and two months later, Priti discovered that she was pregnant with their first child. For the next nine months, her life would be tainted with comments like “I made you pregnant because I am a man”, “You women are nothing compared to our power”, and “Look at you now, succumbing to my power”. She heard it all with her head down, with diligence, with innocence, withholding her anger, withholding her rage—she was to be a mother after all, Gauri had said to me, she had to learn to listen to irrationalities. And yet, Gauri was never allowed to experience the first joys of motherhood, of holding your child close to heart, of listening to them babble and cry, and watching them acclimatize to the world, of letting them feed from you and letting them sleep on you. Because her son was taken from her the moment he was brought outside the operation theatre by her husband’s family, who was overjoyed at the prospect of gaining an heir, of gaining a boy. 

The most important moment of Gauri’s life came in 2011 when she was poisoned by her husband in their kitchen, where the air was ripe with the luscious aroma of peeled grapes and paan leaves. When she woke in a hospital room 5 hours later, she had been told that she had been put under watch because she had attempted to take her own life, and that her son had been taken away due to negligence of his life. But she knew better than to fall for these schemes, now well-versed in her husband’s and his family’s capabilities. She immediately requested for her parents to come, and filed an official police report against her husband and his family. Even though the fight for her freedom did not end there, it was its gradual beginning. The anger of the police report led to her husband getting Gauri’s brother beaten up, so much so that he had to be put on life-support that night. Fortunately, her parents were able to secure her son through police support and brought him to the place he would call home for the rest of his life, the Nithari Village of Uttar Pradesh. Gauri herself was given a phone by her parents and was escorted by the police to Nithari two days later. Little did she know that it was not only the two of them ready for new beginnings but a third, patiently waiting in her mother’s womb.

But Gauri’s struggles did not end there. She fought for over 5 years in the Saket Court in Dehli under Article 498, and in Karkardooma for the charge of Domestic Violence under Article 125, all while trying to raise two toddlers which regular trips to the court. Her husband refused to help in any way in the upbringing of their children and made it impossible for her to get divorced from him. She was denied her right to property that her husband had brought in her name and was forced to live with her parents, brother and sister-in-law. A few months later, she was asked to leave her parents’ house by her sister-in-law, who did not appreciate having Gauri and her children around. More so, on their customary visits to their paternal grandparents, Gauri’s children bared the brunt of the physical torture that had once been inflicted upon her. For almost a decade now they have not seen their father or revisited their paternal grandparents. Instead, they find solace with their maternal grandparents—for whatever time they can because of their aunt—under the protection of the Banyan Tree that stands tall outside their house, and the juicy mangoes that are given every summer day.

Now as Gauri sat before me, she was no longer the sacred and tormented 18-year-old who has succumbed to her husband, but a 32-year-old single mother who has given her all to make a better life for her children. A teacher, owing to her love of the youth and education, responding to feisty students with sassy comebacks now, she is able to finance a wholesome life for her children and herself. She has ensured that both her kids are enrolled in schools and receive the education that she herself had never received and constantly desired, the lack of which lead her into a life of dependence and violence. Most importantly, Gauri has now found her own voice. No longer does she remain quiet when she is inconvenienced or silenced, disrespected or screamed at. Today, she is Gauri Singh, who fought custody battles and domestic violence charges, raises 2 children on her own, volunteers at NGOs and provides for her parents. Today, Gauri Singh is no longer a victim of Domestic Violence, she is a survivor.