Enough

“Enough”

I never knew this simple word when spoken even in the feeblest voice could resound like thunder. And I didn’t know which was more powerful: the thunder itself or the deafening silence that followed.

My fate was sealed the moment I was born, like most girls in my country: I was to be someone’s wife and mother with no other identity of my own. I was reared like a lamb for slaughter. The training also included never to speak-up even in the face of the most unfair treatment, never to take any decision, or even think for oneself and not to expect or wish for anything. In short, be docile just like a lamb.

All elderly women in our society have hidden matchmaking skills, which lie latent most of the time, and germinate as soon as a girl comes of age. So, the mission to find the perfect groom for me started as soon as I passed high school. “I want to study more,” was the best joke they had heard in their lives. Apparently, my achievements did not matter as long as I did not have an over-achiever husband. I was taught never to talk back to the elders, so the subject was never again brought up.

I always wondered why Hindus needed the havan, the ritual fire, on the day of marriage. I was told that it was to keep Agni, the Hindu God of fire, as the witness to the exchange of secret vows between the Bride and the Groom. However, I felt that it was to burn away whatever freedom I had before; to burn away my whole self and reborn, just like a phoenix, as a whole new person.

He never once made any effort to decrease the vast space of unfamiliarity that hung between us. Though with time, the unfamiliarity was replaced by a familiar feeling of repulsion and fear, every time I saw him: repulsed by his every touch which left me feeling violated and fear of how I might displease him.

My days were spent in doing chores around the house. The dirty dishes and laundry never seemed to end. I would clean and clean only to find a new heap of dirty things ready to be worked on. I remembered reading about Sisyphus in school, a legendary Latin king condemned eternally to roll a heavy rock up a hill only to have it roll down again. Sisyphus was condemned because he cheated death twice. I didn’t know why I was facing a similar condemnation while living a life worse than death. However I didn’t mind the work as long as it meant I did not have to deal with him.

His belt would come off on two occasions: first to wield it to draw red and blue shapes on my body and second to make love. And I would be equally terrified on both occasions. I talked about my ordeals with my mother, thinking as a woman herself she would understand. On the contrary I got lectured and convinced that it was somehow my mistake and I must make more efforts to please my husband. Abuse was apparently not enough to make the choice of walking out of a marriage, or abuses, when doled out by a husband, is not considered abuse at all. I would look at the scars in the mirror. They looked like beautiful mountain scenery, offering escape, which was never possible in reality.

If abuse wasn’t a reason to walk out of a marriage, neither was infidelity, specially the husbands’ infidelity. In our society, when a wife is infidel, it is a great crime on her part as she failed her duties as a wife, brought great shame to her parents and in-laws and husband. When a husband is infidel, it is once again the fault of the wife as she must have done something wrong that her husband had to seek comfort in some other woman’s arms. So, I knew I did not have the option to walk out of the marriage even if he was cheating, however, the entry of a shadow in our dark marriage felt like a ray of light and almost welcoming. Although it meant that he wielded the belt longer and more fiercely, it also meant that I had to endure his presence and that of his belt rarely.

Our daughter was the only silver lining in my otherwise hell life. The day she was born, I had promised myself and her that she would not be a lamb for slaughter. I promised to make sure that she would get the life of freedom that I always craved for. So, that day when she was about three and she accidentally spilled tea on my husband’s favorite shirt, he slapped her hard across the face and something in me just snapped.

“Enough,” I said in a feeble voice. It was the first time I chose to protest forcing everyone in the room into a shocked silence. The deafening silence that followed felt the calm before a raging storm. “Enough,” I said once again more firmly and audibly. I was surprised by how easily I could break centuries’ old tradition with a simple word. Of course I had miles to go, but it was just a simple step that set everything in motion.

Of course I did not have the physical strength to fight him. But I had a new-found courage in me after choosing to protest. So, that day when he left to meet his mistress after filling my body with little mountain ranges, I decided to take the escape route they offered. I walked out of the house with my little daughter. We spent the night on the footpath because we had nowhere else to go however I felt safer there than I ever felt in my life. My baby huddled close to me as she was afraid of the thunder and lightning. But to me they felt like sounds of applause; it felt the whole nature applauded the first choice I ever made.