Aparajita:
My Mom was very pretty. With her long, black hair always in an elaborate yet simple braid and her full lips naturally seductive and the colour of peach (She never wore any lipstick or make up), she would have reminded you of a Persian Princess from Sheherzade’s stories.
Sadly though, her life was far from a happy fairy tale.
In spite of having the highest education possible and a blooming career, she was married of to a stranger, who was average in every possible way without any concern for her consent or opinion.
“I don’t know, there was just something quite repulsive about the way he kept staring at me when he came to visit the first time,” My Mom would tell me years later.
Like most women from our socio-cultural background, she grew up without any ideas regarding the fundamentals of human sexual interaction except for one, that it is disgusting, filthy and a good girl or a decent woman should know nothing about it or talk about it.
Needless to say, my father was far from inexperienced in these regards.
And if the common trend in families such as ours is any indication, his knowledge most likely came from either reading porn (It was way before the age of internet, thank God for that, at least) or by visiting one of the local brothels.
I can only imagine the trauma my Mom faced on her wedding night as her repulsion towards sex collided with the repulsion for the man, she was expected to engage in it with.
It scarred her for her life.
And as time passed, she became more and more bitter, withdrawn and frigid.
This of course, did not make my father very happy.
He started to rape her regularly, sometimes at knife-point!
Even then, as he failed to get satisfaction, he became increasingly more violent, more abusive.
In the end, taunting and ridiculing my Mom about everything, including her look.
You have to realize, that in our culture, especially at the time when my Mom was growing up, girls were never particularly praised about their looks for the fear of installing vanity in them as well as to prevent the young boys from getting the wrong idea in their heads.
Women of good families don’t care about such things, was the generally acceptable point of view.
So its understandable, that my Mom never had any self-esteem to begin with.
And now that she started getting berated by my Dad on a regular basis, she finally hit the bottom.
As my father got more and more abusive, started coming home drunk and jumping the housemaids or the local labourer women with every chance he got, my Mom started getting more desperate each day.
And then everyone recommended the easiest band-aid solution for a woman in such situation.
“Have a baby, and everything will be alright, you’ll see,” they kept hammering in her ears.
“Of course, men will always be men, and they all have such minor bad habits, but of course, once the baby comes, you’ll see that he will be a changed man.”
So my Mom conceived and I was born in due time.
Did my birth bring about the longed for miracle for my Mom?
Well, that’s a story for another day………..
(To be continued)
Name has been changed to protect privacy