Rita’s favourite game to play as a child was hide-and-seek. A young girl: her friends would hide, and she would seek. Always. She loved seeking—finding, exploring, discovering. Every evening, without fail, she would seek all over again. But that young girl never knew when the seeking would become real. When she would spend days and nights and then some more days and nights just seeking. Only to find nothing.
Rita -Devi’s husband has been missing for three months. After suffering from some severe mental health issues in the past years, her husband left the house one night and has not returned since. “This is why I have never been hit because I don’t have a husband,” Rita -Devi told me, worry fresh in her voice, her eyes swollen from her lack of sleep. With whatever little she can put together for her household every month, Rita -Devi must ensure the survival of her son, and herself. She does not have the resources to search for a husband, and every day more of her willpower diminishes, with growing prices and debts.
“I really wanted to study. But when the time was appropriate, I didn’t. My parents didn’t want me to study. Now, how do I? I am a mother,” Rita -Devi had shared with me as the aroma of brewing tea surrounded us and the blaring horns at the road, filled the room. She told me about how now if she tried to study, she would be questioned by society. They would call her a neglectful mother, someone who didn’t care about her husband or her family. Only herself. “How do I answer to all that?”
When I had asked her what she thought were some of the general reasons why domestic violence occurred, she had, after careful consideration, confessed, “The reasons are never general. Every case has its own reasons. That is also why general solutions don’t tend to work—either they don’t cater to the actual issues, or they are too remote to help.” Further, she continued to tell me how grossly normalised violence has become in marginalized or underprivileged communities. How the occurence of it is now expected and its absence is a privilege too great to imagine. “It is not nice; I do not like it. I know how this might sound, but violence is never the answer. Certainly not how it is imposed on the female community.”
Today, Rita -Devi is trying to hold together her family, which is falling apart in front of her. Every bit, every penny, every moment counts. This is not hide-and-seek anymore.
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