Not so happy ever after!

We people of Hyderabad, like fellow Indians, always look for greener pastures and the other side of the globe looks greener to our eyes. Youth plan to go the US of A, or the UK or Australia or New Zealand first for higher studies and then to take up jobs there and then get permanent residential status.

Girls prefer NRI husbands and have no qualms about leaving their parents alone at their homes for luxurious lives far beyond our borders. Unfortunately, after the marriage with well-settled NRIs, not all live happily ever after.

Umpteen cases of domestic violence among Indian communities and other ethnic groups in western countries where 85 percent of victims are women are being reported, while several of them get unnoticed as the victims prefer to keep the matter a secret.

According to a recent study, more than 100,000 cases of family violence involving all communities are reported every year from various cities and towns in New Zealand alone, let alone bigger countries like the USA.

A good friend of mine, Reeta (name changed) who is an excellent artist sent me an email recently, asking me to comment on a poem she was planning to write. It begins like this:

Ham hain, so hain, to hain,
Jitna bhi toda maroda.. Phir bhi.. Ham hain, so hain, to hain..

A note of compromise. She has learnt to take life as it comes now. A budding model now in the States and the mother of two, Reeta is a happy soul. But till some months ago, she wasn’t like that. She was struggling hard to get of an abused marriage where she was subjected to mental and physical torture by her husband. Belonging to a traditional and god-fearing family, Reeta’s mother told her to put up with the wife-beater as Indian women were supposed to be submissive.

She wrote to me in times of adversity: “One more week and I will be out of this house, if everything goes as planned by me and my lawyer. Just praying that he will not find out about my plans before me reaching a safe place. Once I am in the women shelter, I don't know what is going to happen. I am sure things are going to get ugly before getting better. He is controlling all the accounts. So I assume he will close everything on me as soon as he finds about this.

I am not doing any job and don't have any money with me, so I will be penniless and be living on the mercy on charities. At the same time I don't know where I will be living after I leave this house. My lawyer has some plans for me but I don't know them yet. I am afraid of unknown and am thinking that since I do not have proof to prove any of my accusations on him what if I will lose my case against him. I am too much afraid of going back, because once I am out, then there's no coming back. I am also afraid of my kids' emotional status because they are too much attached to their father, he is like Disney daddy for them. I am afraid of what I am going to feed them once I am out of this house….”

She went on writing many things and what all I could do was to give her some courage. The day came at last, she got out of the house with the help of her lawyer, a Pakistani. She came to terms with hard realities, took up some modeling job, became financially independent and is now leading a normal, happy life.

Reeta could muster courage to defy her fate. She was lucky that she could stand on her feet. But, most of our women who fly away longing for luxury are languishing inside the walls of their posh houses in some faraway countries, weeping silently and accepting their fates. When will our women learn to be independent, socially and financially?