Quarantined

BlogAdda's Tangy Tuesday 

   




Shattered in pain, crying her insides out. No words can define her situation. Lost. She lost a part of her existence already. Her soulmate, her husband. The society is around. To take care of the necessities, the rituals. 

After he leaves, bathe her. Bathe her out in the open. Clothes. Colourless for her from now on. She doesn’t deserve colours in her life anymore. Her husband brought colours to her life. No him, no colours. Widow. They call her, right in her face. Cursed she is now. Cursed for life.

Quarantine her. For she is not a suhaagan anymore. Quarantine her like those diseased cattle. For her touch is not auspicious any longer. You talk about touch? Even her presence is inauspicious. Unwanted, to be precise. As if the death of her husband is not enough of a loss for her, she needs to be reminded all the time that she is cursed, cursed for life.

But, we are modern people now. We allow her to wear colours. Yes, ‘allow’ her. Allow her shades of light pinks, light blues, pale yellows and peaches. That’s it. No reds, greens and maroons can adorn her anymore. Nope. She doesn’t need them.

You allow her to live a normal life. Hah, ‘allow’ again. For she now needs permissions. Of those elder women - the ones who have gone through similar fates. Permissions - of the caretakers of culture, caretakers of society. She needs permissions for conducting some simple routines of life. 

But, we are modern people, you know. Ofcourse, she can be a part of ‘normal’ ladies group now that you have ‘allowed’ her. But, you cannot talk about your husbands in front of her. She can get jealous. I mean, who knows, maybe she might just want to rob you of all your happiness out of jealously and curse you of the same fate. You know, curses of ‘such kind’ of people affect you sooner. So again you quarantine certain topics in front of her. Topics of husbands. Of happiness. Of anything that ‘you’ think that she can never ‘enjoy’ now that she is a widow.

Marriages. She shouldn’t be attending them. How can she? Marriages are a celebration. How can she be a part of any celebration? She lost her right to celebrate after her husband, didn’t she? But again, as I told you, we are modern people. Call her, atleast as a formality. She wouldn’t dare to come. But if she disappoints you, you need to show her ‘her’ place. Remind her. Remind her that she is the cursed one. Keep her away as much as possible from any auspicious ceremony. She cannot handle the shagun ki thali nor touch the shagun ki mehndi. Quarantine her again. For apshakun she is. Evil eyed. Make her feel like an outcast. She should know that she is different. Not normal. Cursed.  

Her daughter’s marriage. Her daughter - her only reason for existence. Arey, we are modern people. She ofcourse will be part of her daughter’s wedding. But. You cannot let her do the kanyadaan. No. She is her daughter, so what? Her curse might fall on her own daughter. The girl is starting a new life. How can her mother’s apshakun be a part of her new life? Quarantine her of that dream too, the one she saw with her husband. Of getting her daughter married to handsome man. After all, she is cursed, isn’t she?

No, we are not robbing her of everything, you see. She can do something without any guilt. Like praying. Yes, that is the only righteous thing she can do after her husband. Pray hard. So that the sins of this life don’t affect her next life. As such she is suffering by being a widow in her present birth because of her past life sins.

Widow. You use that word for her as if she is diseased. Diseased. Yes. Not her. But You. It’s you that needs to be quarantined of your baseless beliefs; not her right to live a normal happy life. May be, just may be then, you can call yourself a modern society.  

This post is written as a part of April A to Z Challenge 2014 under Non-Themed category. I am doing two posts for this Challenge and Themed posts can be found here.

Incident every working mother should read !!

By the end of this post, you would agree that the post justifies the title I have given. I got to know about this shocking incident a few days back from a friend and I have been telling this incident to a lot of people and have wanted to write about this since long.

This is a true incident. Both husband and wife were working and had a two year old baby. Husband’s and wife’s family stayed in some other state. Since none of the families could come and take care of the baby, they appointed a caretaker woman which is a pretty normal practice in a lot of households where no family members are available to look after the children of working parents. The woman came everyday in morning before the parents left and stayed with the baby till they returned. This continued for a few months. The baby seemed to have adjusted with the caretaker and things were running absolutely smooth.

One day, the mother came back from office unannounced by lunch time. She saw that her baby was fast asleep and asked the caretaker when had she slept to which she replied that the baby had gone to sleep after her breakfast. The mother asked the caretaker to take a leave since she was now available at home.

When the baby did not wake up even after five-six hours, she panicked and called her husband. They took the baby to the hospital where his blood samples were taken. And when the reports arrived, its revelations shocked everybody. The doctor told them that the baby’s blood had traces of sedatives/ sleeping pills.

The caretaker mixed sedatives in baby’s food so that the baby would fall asleep all during her stay not causing her any trouble and she could while away her time without any efforts to actually look after the baby.

I am not much aware if the parents registered a police complaint and whether the caretaker woman was caught or not. But I just hope they did and the woman was caught.

I am not a mother, but just listening about a child being drugged to sleep sent chills down my spine. I can just imagine how the mother would have coped with this. Had it not been for the coincidence of her returning early, she would have never known about this cruel act and it would have continued damaging the child’s body to God knows what extent. I am not sure about the medical effects the sleeping pills could have on a child, but the very fact that they were being used on a child was a shocker to me.  

Just thought of sharing this incident. It might just help someone.

This post is written as a part of April A to Z Challenge 2014 under Non-Themed category. I am doing two posts for this Challenge and Themed posts can be found here.