Beauty and superstition- a lethal tango for women in India

Some weeks ago one of my relatives died. She was suffering from a rare form of cancer and due to time lapses in obtaining medical aid, her disease progressed fatally and she met an untimely end.

When my relative R was alive, she was greatly admired for her beauty and grace. In her youth she was the cynosure of all eyes. Naturally the web of rumours flew fast and thick and circled around her. People were jealous of her beauty and sought to malign her reputation. Her husband was posted frequently across various places, and hence she could not have a career. Neither did her husband permit her to work, citing her responsibilities to her family. Her talents dried up over time in the same way as a plant would dry up in a desert over lack of water.

 Her married life was fairly good, yet after a certain point of time she developed depression. R frequently complained of diseases present in her body and of shadowy characters who would hang around their rented house in her husband’s absence. She worried over trivial issues and confided more than once, that she feared for her life. Towards the latter part of life, R’s domestic life became chaotic: her husband had a violent streak in him and often assaulted her physically. Moreover she was subjected to jibes from him. Her health took a heavy toll which worsened over time, till she lost the battle to cancer.

Today R is no more. She suffered greatly on account of her beauty some people say. I want to pose some questions to people now:

Is it a crime to have a beautiful face?

Does a person’s beauty give the impression that she is a good prey for all those sadistic predators hanging around the corners?

Why should a girl suffer taunts if she is not pretty at all yet has brains to prove her worth?

Why married women cannot have a career if they are willing to exercise their wishes?

Why is it that in some parts of India, a woman who asserts her rights is branded a witch?

Or if she complains of sickness or diseases people are likely to take her to an ojha than a doctor?

That if she complains of domestic violence, people are likely to check her horoscope for some planetary influence and ask her to ‘settle down amicably’ with her husband, rather than file a complaint on her behalf at the nearest police station and shirk away from providing any monetary aid or offering mental solace to the victim, prevent her from self-guilt and confusion over her priorities?

Why is it that we do not wish upon to intrude upon ‘family privacy’ inspite of the telling signs of domestic violence, though we are eager to scoop up any juicy tales of marital infidelity or rapes happening across the state or country from our friends and neighbours, or are willing participants in the morbid craze to comment on the personal lives of any woman in our neighbourhood?

Why do we believe that only alcoholics assault their wives and disbelieve reports of non-alcoholics/tea-tollers/pan-chewers/beedi smokers assaulting their wives as well, citing that perhaps the wife ‘must have triggered it by her loud mouth’?

I have no answers to these questions. The smoke rising from R’s funeral bears mute testimony to her memories and the agony she suffered at the price of being an woman born in a cynical society and married to a despotic husband. I wish I was old enough to ring the bell on her behalf.