Papa was very fond of his hometown, Kolhapur. Often he would talk of the Rankala Lake there. Nearby the lake is a Lord Shiva temple with a big Nandi sculpture. It seems the day the Nandi is submerged in the lake, the world would end, too. If the Nandi, it is believed, daily proceeds forward by an inch, it apparently reverts two inches backwards!
Both Papa and Aai used to say that this myth is symbolic of societal attitudes, of socio-cultural praxis. In other words, mindsets take ages to change. Whatever happened in a small town near Pune proves the truth of this maxim. Yes, I am referring to the tragic abetment to suicide (it possibly might be a murder, too) of a young wife, a lactating mother whose baby is hardly nine months old.
Every detail about this most unfortunate incident is weird. Here is a young woman who married for love, against her parents' wishes. It seems, she eloped even when her father was in the hospital with a heart attack.
She, it seems, did not mind marrying the man who threatened her father as well as other possible alliances before the marriage was finally acceded to by her family. During the marriage ceremony, she did not mind the dowry, fifty-one tolas (or is it kilos?) of gold, some more kilos of silver, a Fortuner, an Activa and a grand marriage with five thousand guests, an expenditure whose total worth would run in to at least a crore!
If she had stood up for herself and her family, and said that she was marrying for love, and would not need all such raazmaataaz, would she have been saved a tragic death? If she was bold enough to elope and marry, why did she choose suicide? If she was poisoned when she was three months pregnant, and had to be admitted to the AIMs, it seems, why did she opt for returning to her in-laws for further harassment? How come her parents sent her back? Why could not she instead support herself and her baby? How far educated was her husband? How could he demand two more crores from her family?
If her in-laws were inhumanely greedy and her parental family subservient to the societal pressure, much worse is the system which failed her. Buckling under the obvious political pressure, the police handled the case in such a way that many loopholes glare like demonic eyes. But natural! Her mother-in-law boasted of a hi-fi police connection, while her father-in-law (he enjoyed wonderful mutton parties while absconding for a week) headed the local unit of a prominent party. Yet neither was shamed in to avoiding such sins!
The Maharashtra Women's Commission sure went through the motions when the elder daughter-in-law of the family had complained, but not exactly proactively. The Department of Welfare of Women and Children is conspicuous by its total silence as far as this case goes. The legal process has wheels within wheels that turn absolutely slowly. The media would shriek this headline till the next breaking news happens! Society as such would gossip a little longer!! One felt ashamed even to watch people sniggering while talking about this horrible incident!!!
Why such indifference? How to change it? Why/whence such cruelty to begin with? Due to money power acquired through sale deeds of land with builders and for 'development projects'? Due to political and police connections? Truly sad is the fact that the trickle down effect of grandiose marriages adds to debts which is one of the major reasons behind farmer suicides. When are we as a society going to realise that marriage is not mere event management? This "Mulashi Pattern" is horrific beyond words, especially given the goonda-ism that did not spare a baby! Indeed our society paces one inch forward, and a metre backwards even in the third decade of the volatile twenty-first century!
Pratima@ So sad that such events prove that most women, as Andrea Dworkin would put it, are so committed to survival that they forget that such a course leads to committing (psychological, if not actual) suicide!
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