Brewing Death Underneath / Deepti Gupta
| मुखपृष्ठ » | रचनाकारों की सूची » | Writer: दीप्ति गुप्ता |
Lately suicide by women has constantly been in rise. On women’s day, suicide by Mumbai resident Nidhi Gupta , after a few days of this incident, on April 16, Deepti Chauhan’s suicide shocked us to think about the plight of women within the four walls of their own home. In both the cases, women killed themselves by jumping off from terrace. Not only this Nidhi and Deepti, before taking the drastic step, first flung their children off from the terrace as probably they did not want to leave their children in the unsafe hands of those family members who dragged both the devastated housewives to suicide. Thus they protected their children by taking them with themselves. Daily we come across pathetic cases of suicide by housewives and girls in relationships. It is undeniable that a woman needs a companion for the smooth running of life. Parents marry their daughter to the most deserving boy who is charming, understanding, intelligent and holding a good post. But when an understanding husband starts rearing an abusive attitude, cruel mind & ruthless heart - it becomes difficult to analyse the initiative point of this ugly change. Woman keeps suffering and avoids admitting that she is in a abusive relationship.
Abuse against woman remains hidden under suave behaviour of husband which defies all the possibility of his being non- cooperative, nagging and aggressive behind the doors. Aggression brewing underneath the surface is often unnoticeable. When the notion of love becomes the harbinger of physical, verbal and emotional abuse – it gets hard for the victim to save herself from its blows. It occurs repeatedly. Woman breathes under constant suffocation and lots of emotional and social pressures. She is morally and socially bound to bear thrashing and bashing from husband.
She is subjugated not only by husband but also by other family members on some pretext or the other. Surprisingly the aggressor at times after the verbal and physical torture, gets apologetic and repenting - to the extent that the wife is compelled to believe his apologetic gestures. She gets trapped in the vicious relationship so pitiably that she often herself remains unaware of her exploitation.
Mostly those women who are economically dependent on husbands – are unable to walk out of the relationship. Not only she is mentally, emotionally and physically abused but the abusive partner cuts her off from relatives and friends and thus she is isolated. In that situation, the only option left with her is to quietly accept and compromise with the painful occurrences. In –laws are often seen ignoring the ‘husband-wife quarrels’as a common thing and take them casually. Instead of intervening, they turn a deaf ear and the wife lives in stress which thickens by each passing day. In-laws, sister-in-law, friends, neighbours nobody come forward for her rescue. Top of all this, worries and liability to raise children with required attention, love and care – which is missing within her drained existence, keep gnawing her . These nagging problems along with husband’s abusive behaviour push her to take the drastic step of killing her children and herself to get rid of malignant problems. It happens not in a day but the constant corrosion of her mental and emotional equilibrium, exhaustion of patience & tolerance and last but not the least - irrevocable damage to her self-respect and dignity as a human being compel her to harm herself. She gets surrounded by dense darkness from all the corners . Negligence and unsympathetic attitude of family members accumulate to push her to the morbid determination to finish her life. The perceptible inhumanity of close people around, reflecting through their unconcerned and unbothered attitude intensifies vacuum within her and the outcome of this heartlessness of families is that she gets extremely devastated to take insane step with ease. She embraces death over life.
These incorrigible cases compel us to evaluate today’s increasing tense and tough situations in and out homes and to bring out the feasible solutions to remove the rearing sickness in families and among couples.Women need to realise that taking drastic step is not the right solution of the obstinate problem. Instead, it should be pushed away harshly by victimised women through sharing their sufferings with ‘Help Groups’ ‘Protection Cells’ and ‘Individual Units’who offer their free services. No matter how severe is the situation, women should not adopt the abnormal course. This is high time when a strategy to guarntee emotional, physical and social security to victimised women and children be adopted to bring the tragedies to end.
It is a matter of great regret that among educated class, social behaviour runs contrary to social laws and moral norms. There is a wide gap between legal provisions on women’s issues and their actual practices. Laws enacted to empower them and protect them, are random proved beneficial for them. When the prolem arises, why these laws are not implemented by the judges and police dept to protect women. It is often witnessed social legislation is either ignored or misused and victim woman hardly gets any justice. The need of the hour is to struggle tough to break the barriers of deep rooted patriarchy in our society and grant woman her dignified and protected status.
