A SURVIVOR'S STORY

It could have been me. 

It could have been you. 

It could have been anyone. 

But it wasn’t. It was her.  A woman with one dead child, a teenage daughter, two young sons and a baby in her arms when her world literally came crashing down. Till then, she had lived her life like a queen. After all, being the wife of a police inspector wasn’t bad at all. That’s what everyone thought, mindless of all the challenges it entailed. They felt she had it all, especially her husband's three younger brothers, whom she had cared for like her own sons; getting them married, getting them jobs, getting them settled, only to be later cursed by the lot. Nothing new or unusual about that, one would say. Then why even tell this story? Well, for starters, it's a story about quiet resilience that we see around us, but never really stop to pay attention. It's a story about a woman who not only fought and prevailed, but did it all with immense dignity and pride and a smile that never left her face. 

Like most Indian women from her era, she was never the protagonist of her own life but content  playing meagre roles supporting others. And, hence her story doesn't begin with her birth or marriage. But the day when her world imploded and the spotlight unceremoniously was thrust on her. One day, exactly thirteen years ago, she sent her husband to work, not realising that his journey back home would be his last. The cruel wrath of destiny left him dead in a train accident and in one swift stroke changed her entire identity. It changed her appearance, changed her residence, changed her friends and basically changed her faith in the goodness of people. Every relationship she had trusted and relied upon, up till then, only threw hollowness in her face and it suddenly dawned on her, that for the very first time, she was all alone, centre stage, with all eyes on her, something she was neither prepared for or accustomed to. 

Tragedies have this horrid habit of unfolding slowly, blow by blow, layer by layer, like peeling an onion and hurting as you go further.  It was no different for her. No sooner had the shock sunk in and her tears dried up that devastation struck again, this time threatening to snatch the very roof above her head. And what hurt more was not that the spell of adversities failed to cease, but that they were coming from a corner most unlikely. Within days of the initial tragedy, one of her brothers-in-law, thinking her to be down and vulnerable, showed his true colours and filed a lawsuit, laying claim to her home. Through it all, her closest stood watching from the sidelines, looking very uninvolved and not entirely distraught at her misfortune. Some were even glad, she said. No one knew whether she would survive this tragedy or perish fighting. What they knew was that she made for an interesting topic to speculate over a hot cup of tea and evening snacks. But what they didn’t know was that they were soon to see a side of a woman they thought never existed.

In a society where widows are uncared for and left to wilt away the remainder of their days, this woman of humble origins from Haryana summoned whatever courage she had and began swimming against the tide. She knew that breaking societal norms, however redundant, meant gross philistinism. But she was a mother and had mouths to feed, which looked like a super human task for a woman who had neither a road map nor a wingman to show her the way out of a life she was so accustomed to. Caught between two worlds, not knowing which way to go, she gradually, bit by bit, began to pick up the pieces of her life. A less courageous soul might have given up and thrown in the towel. But she remained undaunted and slowly learnt to ignore the murmurs in her need to stay afloat. Not worrying too much about the morality of ways, she stepped out of her home determined to give it a fight. A bit jaded, but not without hope or that signature smile which was the only anchor she and her four fatherless children had.

As hardships came in blinding torrents and as the legal tussle for her house progressed, her children were threatened and intimidated with dire consequences, eventually driving them out of their home on a cold, wintry night into inhospitable surroundings. They were left to languish on their own and at the mercy of fate. All doors were slammed on their faces. For her near, and till now dear ones, who had once found unending hospitality at her hands, no longer wished to be inconvenienced by her misfortune. From the asphalt of life to the dirt road, life had taken quite a turn. But instead of keeling over, this lady gave her brother-in-law, with whatever meagre resources she had, a tough fight, running in and out of courts for years, only to emerge victorious in the end. Not to mention, he was the same desperate, childless and now very ungrateful brother-in-law, whom she had given her eight-day-old daughter in an attempt to fill the vacuum in his barren life.

Fortunately, her husband’s superiors in the police department understood her predicament and gave her a job on compassionate grounds. For a woman who had mostly worn a saree, to dawn a khakhi uniform was nothing short of daunting. But she overcame her initial hesitation and self-consciousness to fully embrace her new role for which she was shamed and criticised endlessly. How dare she cross the threshold? What was she doing in a man's world? Many saw her and her fatherless children, merely as sorry remnants of a better past. But for a woman who once wept copious tears silently at night, life had come a long way and she faced all questions with her winning smile.

I tell this story because even today attitudes towards women, especially widowed or divorced, are cloaked by a narrow and rather repellent form of social system, which binds them to archaic taboos, restrictions and intense scrutiny. Thankfully, this old mindset is slowly but steadily showing signs of thawing and this puissant lady is a shining example of that change. A doughty and defiant woman from a small town, she stands tall for having smashed stereotypes and gender biases with impunity. A bit rattled, she's still every bit a survivor.

Today, patches of sunlight have managed to filter through the thick canopy of tragedies that had once shrouded her life and it was a delight to hear her story and the tenacious manner in which she had conducted her life. A life that has seen it all, sorrow and satisfaction, valour and hostility, acme and angst. Over the years, her quiet resilience has won over many hearts, including mine. Her friends call her Kanta. Others call her aunty. Her children call her their hero, for she smiles even today.


P.S: This article was published in the
Sahara Time (Panorama Section) in June 2003
under the title, "Changing the course of destiny."
It is the true story of a now retired Delhi Police Lady Head Constable.