अनकही #12

Carefully, as though it might break, Dikshika applies medicine over the scar on her hand. When she got it over three days ago, she didn’t care; it would go away by the morning. Three days later, the realisation of her own fragility, her own age had hit her. The scar would not heal so easily now. No, it would take medicine and care, and it would hurt. These were not the old days. But still, so much was the same. 

Dikshika-Devi is now the oldest member of her household, with seven granddaughters, three grandsons, three sons, three daughters-in-law and her husband. And yet, with so many people to earn for the house, they have no savings at all. “We are poor in its proper sense. Everything we earn, we spend. There is nothing left to save,” Dikshika-Devi shared, her greying hair falling over her eyes, and the wrinkles on her skin highlighted by the overhead lights. And for Dikshika-Devi, contributing was not easy, because she was educated, and the only way she could communicate was through her spoken words. “I really did want to study when I was young. But my parents were poor, that even basic food and water were a luxury.”

Quickly, we moved on to our main topic of conversation, because Dikshika-Devi hated beating around the bush, thanks to the lessons she has learned over the years. “No one else, only my husband hits me. Till now. We have been married for years and years, we have grandchildren, and he still hits me. And now that I am old and frail, he gets angrier, because it gets easier for the marks of violence to show. I do not have the strength of being young and active anymore. So when I get beaten, it hurts, and it shows. This annoys him.” She continued to share how he would do hard drugs, drink with them and come home rotten, an animal. Her husband does not even allow females in the house to go to a hospital for delivering their babies, he does not allow them to step out of the house at all. They have to manage everything in the four walls they are trapped in—from sadness to happiness, sickness and health, death, disaster, everything. 

When asked why she didn’t go to the police with this, her ironic answer surprised me. “I didn’t go because he is old, and if they hit him, he might get seriously hurt. I don’t want that. And, society will talk. They will say I sent him to the beating, disgrace me for that and disgrace him for hitting me. It would ruin the family.” 

Dikshika-Devi continued to tell me how this is all everyone talks about, the violence that everyone can see but nobody acknowledges. It happens everywhere, ridiculously common but nobody does anything. “Violence is a bad, vile thing. But it always has a reason. Without a reason, there is no cause to hit anyone. If you find the cause and fix it, violence can stop. You will either have to ask the wife to tolerate it, or the husband to stop. And I believe that the justice system is helpful. People should use that.” Every night now, Dikshika-Devi sleeps with the wisdom she has gained over the years. And the scars.