अनकही #07

Recount how many people you know who, without having any remote understanding of finances, have been given the task of running an entire family with nothing in their hands. Who most assume the role of parent, provider, earner, distributor, doctor, lawyer—all at once. Without any support, and with endless problems in your way. It seems hard until you speak to a woman who is living it. 

Soma-Devi, 38, has been living a life that, rarely, if anyone, can brave. Her son has been unemployed for the past 9 months, occasionally getting a temporary job, but still not earning enough to contribute to the household. Her younger daughter was rushed to the government emergency room in the local hospital one day after she was found unconscious on the floor. There, after multiple scans and tests, Soma-Devi was told that her daughter had severe swelling in her brain, blocked lungs and a positive diagnosis for Tuberculosis, commonly referred to as TB. With nothing but the 10,000 rupees Soma-Devi brings into the house on her own, treatment is impossible. It has now been four months since her daughter went unconscious. 

“10,000 is nothing in today’s times. Nothing. Imagine figuring out how to divide 10,000 between medicines, rents, bills, debts, and interest. It bleeds you dry,” Soma-Devi had shared with me, her voice carrying the tone of defeat, her eyes never quite meeting me, always focused on the table between us. She has not received any education either, even though she wanted to. However, her circumstances were such that her Dad had passed away when she was young, and so her Mom had no other option but to get her wed against her wishes when she was only 17. And now, without any educational qualifications to get her a well-paying job, Soma-Devi has the task of dividing 10,000 rupees between 9 members of her household, every month. 

Although she never experienced violence personally due to being the sole guardian in her house, Soma-Devi has known it to happen in places around her. “It is because of need. It all comes down to need. When men feel helpless and lost and angry, they take it out on women. When women feel the same thing, they take it out on the children. These children grow up and then take it out on their spouses. That’s how the cycle has always gone, how things have always happened.”

Soma-Devi offers an account of how it is living in such poverty, with gross violence surrounding you. And how, so much of life drains out of you when you become the creator, keeper and executor, all at once.