अनकही #15

Hitting the buckets hurts her back a little more today. But she cannot tell this to her employer. After all, this is her bread and butter. This is the reason she’s allowed to stay at her in-laws’ house. She will pick up the buckets, she will clean the floor, she will wash the utensils. She will do everything. But she will never, ever complain. 

Runa was thirteen years old when she got married, and fifteen when she birthed her first child. The first time she could make her hair without the help of her mother-in-law was well past her third anniversary. And Runa was only trying to help because she thought she could fix the situation, the first time was hit by her husband. 

When the first rays of the sun touched the Ghasola Village, situated not fifteen minutes away from the bustle of the main city, a fight broke out in the neighbourhood, right outside Runa’s house. She did not know why this had happened when it had happened, how it escalated so quickly. She did not even know why her husband and her brother-in-law were outside, right in the middle of the fight. All she knew was that she could help. She could calm everyone down, and tell them to sort it out inside. She could see the horror on the faces of the children around, the worrying lines on the mothers’ faces. She had to do something, and so she did. Since that day, she has been regretting it. 

Runa pushed past the people crowding the fight, pushed past those others punching and kicking each other, and pushed past until she saw her husband.  Before she could get two words out, Runa was gripped by her shoulders and carried inside. The door of the room was locked. Her husband stood before her. And then, for the next hour, she was beaten up, beaten up to bruises and scratches. Then, verbally abused. All this because her husband thought she was trying to interfere in the ‘business of men’, that she was trying the meddle in matters that did not belong to her, were not worthy of women. 

Many times her husband and brother-in-law came how drunk and completely intoxicated. The only female in the house that wasn’t their mother or sister, she was hit, then abused, then hit again. And she never knew why. She couldn’t dare question it or tell anyone. Constantly, she was objectified. Looked at as a ‘thing’ to be used and then discarded, all because she belonged to the ‘inferior gender’

For Runa, these incidents only got worse with time. And every time they happened, she had to get ready and step out of the house and show up at work, all the while acting like nothing had happened, that nothing bothered her. That what was happening was normal, because she did not have any other choice. No other choice. So, she picked up the buckets and carried on.