The customers teeming around the roadside wine shops after dark remind her of flies buzzing around an impaled goat carcass in a butcher shop.
Watching the men from the safe confines of a darkened car, mom wonders at their level of desperation as they hold their money aloft and trip over each other in order to reach the counter and quench their thirst.
The ones who manage to worm their way through the throng emerge triumphant, carefully clutching their sachet of liquid gold. A few patrons huddle silently, squatting under a dim streetlight like peasants, their bellies already sated with drink.
The putrescence of their surroundings do not seem to affect the men; indeed, they contribute to the existing feculence by hurling great gobs of spit around them or nonchalantly using the back wall to relieve themselves.
A group of boys in jeans, barely men yet, support a friend as he doubles over and vomits the venom out of his body. While one offers him water, another encourages him to take a drag, followed by a swig from a dark bottle. The boy obliges and gulps clumsily, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, while his cohorts cheer and slap his back, making him feel like a man.
As the light changes to green and the car pulls away, mom thinks about her housemaid. “You do know her husband’s a drunkard, right?” her former employer informed mom one evening.
“Oh? I thought he was a painter,” replied mom dimly, not wanting to believe that the woman who hums while cleaning our bathrooms leads a troubled home life.
Was the maid's husband at a similar wine shop tonight, relieving himself of his day's wages? Does he go home and beat her? How does she manage her brood of three children on her slim earnings? Did she choose to have children or were they forced on her? Why does she stay with him? Why doesn’t she just leave?
“You know, all these men are drunkards,” the maid's former employer said softly, sweeping her arms to include her own gardener, chauffeur and the night watchman hovering nearby.
In the face of such despondency, don't you think the women should be out drinking instead?
35 comments:
oh... that is deep dark and depressing :(
Shyam, I like mornings better. Things seem brighter.
Used to have a watchman (way back when we were building our house), the guy used to turn up drunk every evening and create a scene...once I asked him why and his answer was (translated)... "Swami it makes me forget the pain I get from working hard all day"
To his credit, his "creating a scene" did not involve abusing his family.. funnily enough he used to get drunk and then come and sing loudly in a really bad voice causing the neighbours sleepless nights :-)
Vijay, a drunk watchman? Defeats the purpose of hiring him, doesn't it?
"In the face of such despondency, don't you think the women should be out drinking instead?"
Children also??
@Terri: The term Watchman loosely refers to the warm body that stays in the building at night and helps out with the construction in the morning....
gds, no children, no. Let's break the cycle.
vijay, I found out night watchmen in my neighborhood charge Rs. 3,000 a month. How much does moonshine or whatever they drink cost?
If the women were out drinking, who'd take care of the house and kids and bring home the bacon? The husband? Please.
terri:
"I found out night watchmen in my neighborhood charge Rs. 3,000 a month."
is rs. 3000/month the standard going rate for labourers in the neighborhood, regardless of what they do (or don't)?
- s.b.
Ahh! You make it sound so depressing coz you haven't had any. Man's best invention... "DARU"!! come back, gal..we'll do a night out, just u and me and maybe sandy. :)
I've often wondered "why doesn't she just leave" and have concluded that's more an option of privilege. I think many women from the poorer strata prefer to stay and be the victim of one abusive husband. Being without the "respectability" and/or protection of a male presence likely makes them vulnerable to being victimized by many (mostly male?) abusers...
On a related but lighter note, I think my maid feels sorry for me for having a "bekaar" husband that I have to support :-) The other half is a night owl, the maid gets in early and I shoo her out as I leave for work by 8:00 am. She's only seen him sleeping and me going to work; she's probaby drawn her conclusions. She's started to become unnecessarily noisy when she cleans our bedroom (as he sleeps)and I wonder if she's trying to wake him up out of a mis-placed sense of loyalty. Makes the OH mad and me giggle at her snapshot of our life :-D
-DS
I think women who have such broken families are much more responsible than to go get drunk. Atleast there is someone to take care of the kids!
But i wonder why they put up with such abusive husbands.Thats one thing i havenot been able to fathom.
Terri, dont know the cost.. will find out :-)
In Bangalore, they drink cheap whiskey (or so I have heard ;-) )
ps: Just remembered Pentamma, our maid for a few years in Hyderabad. She was an older woman with adult children, and every now and then her daughter would come in to do the housework because she (Pentamma) had gotten roaring, fall-down drunk the previous night. I don't think she abused anyone, though ..
-DS
This is exactly what I had observed as well. Every maid I saw had a drunkard husband and she would even justify it saying he works so hard, so to make up for body aches they need the sarakku. Pretty much the whole family survived only on her salary.
As some one else said, in a small town I used to live before madras life, I have also seen my maid servant smoke a suruttu(cigar) casually. But never have I seen the irresponsible behavior as the Husband.
I think the maid servants in madras are a different bunch. One of the maids who worked for us in madras had an acre of land in her village. She once lost 6 soverigns of gold due to a theft. She had left all that gold in her hut!
Their situation would be so much better with just little more money handling knowledge that middle class has in India even if they earned the same amount of money!
lol @ DS's story above, what is that a revenge tactic against the hubby?
d.s.:
the muser:
"But i wonder why they put up with such abusive husbands.Thats one thing i havenot been able to fathom."
do you think a woman should stay on with her (supposedly) rich husband if he gambles her away over a game of dice?
ds:
"She's started to become unnecessarily noisy when she cleans our bedroom (as he sleeps)"
rotfl!!! looks like this maid is a keeper; she deserves every naya paisa of raise she gets! just tell/teach her to switch on "suprabhaatam" every morning, instead of making all that noise :-). i bet oh would not mind that either ... [ek panth do kaaj]
ds (part 2):
"she (Pentamma) had gotten roaring"
sounds like this choohaa billee pair!
- s.b.
Muser 1 and Muser 2, the men obviously think they work so hard and therefore deserve to drink. They should try walking in their spouses’ shoes for one day.
s.b., the two ex-cooks I had made the same amount. I feel a lot of the homeowners could save a bundle if they employed ferocious Alsatians to guard the house instead of drunk watchmen.
Guddi, ahem, yes, I heard about a recent Christmas party that ended in (hic! hic!) high spirits. I think I will come armed with Gangajal instead.
DS, here also husband is seemingly still on U.S. time, which is why he sleeps until 10:30 a.m. Since we both stay home, the maid probably thinks we’re rolling in money, which is why she keeps dropping hints on increasing her salary. That Pentamma seems like a rather spirited lady.
Vijay, wow, I thought whiskey was a burra sahib’s drink. Anyway, please don’t trouble yourself and conduct research on my account ;-)
Sachita, an acre of land? That maid was a zamindar. I wonder if she would’ve been better off farming.
Anyway, please don’t trouble yourself and conduct research on my account ;-)
Damn.. I was going to do some hands on research ;-)
Also the term Whiskey is used very loosely
Hi Terri, been reading your blog for a few months, and love the way your write. De-lurking now to tell you an incident with a friends maid. My friend had heard her maid often lament about how her husband is a complete parasite, who got drunk, took her money, beat her every chance he got and got her pregnant with alarming regularity. So one day my friend asked her "Why dont you just leave?" Her answer (please forgive my Tamil- feel free to correct and publish) "Yenna solre Akka, avunga film star maathiri irikka!" ("What are you saying Akka? He looks like a film star!")
Does that make you laugh or cry? I haven't been able to decide :(
@ s.b. : I do have a soft corner for Pushpa. I suspect she thinks I could do with a make-over to make me look more "feminine". She only sees me in jeans and work shirts or capris and ratty T shirts and no jewellery. She looked horrified when I hustled her out of the house as I finger-combed my dripping wet hair and worriedly asked if I had a (real) comb. I promised her I would comb my hair as soon as I got to work.
Re: Smita's comment "He looks like a film star" -- I wonder if that is code for "the sex is awesome"
-DS
Pray, why the despondency? Somehow it felt so unlike you...
Here's to brighter times ahead.
terri:
re: titli, i think sharmila > aparna sen. wonder how dipali's neighbours would vote in this bong vs. bong matchup.
smitha:
from what i've read on this blog, you need not apologize for your tamil. mom will likely understand my tamil too! ;-)
and i agree with ds. the maid speaks like a chinese cookie; you need to add "in bed" (within reason) to the end of whatever she says.
- s.b.
"as they hold their money aloft"
it's not theirs, of course, as you say at the end.
This is one of the main reasons the micro financing programs are targeted at the women.
And the answer to why they keep going back is that the alternative is worse. A woman who has left her husband is fair game for harrassment.
That being said, cheer up, TM!
Sujatha, I should ask my maid if she's heard of micro financing. (I haven't, so please explain what it is in case she turns around and asks me.)
s.b., they're both beautiful, although I haven't seen La Tagore without makeup.
IlL, it's easy to feel despondent in India. Things that are hidden in the West are so in-your-face here, they're bound to affect you.
Smitha, thank you. I like DS's interpretation :) There are times when I feel my husband also looks like a film star ;)
Vijay, if you want to conduct research, could you please find out where they serve pineapple kesari bhat in your city? I once had it in a hole-in-the-wall place when I was a child, and the memory lingers.
terri:
suggested title for the future ...
how i missed the nobel :-)
"Things that are hidden in the West"
i thought that where you live, you are pretty well sheltered. anyway, maybe that's one aspect india needs to learn from the west! btw, check out this book by john perkins "confessions of an economic hit man" if/when you get a chance (i'm reading it right now).
- s.b.
It's one of the harsh realities of life, but most distressing to actually see. And I saw a lot of pawn shops near the booze shops in rural Tamil Nadu.
What to do, Terri? It is distressing.
dipali, the men are sick. Literally. Their insides are rotting, but they don't want to give up. I wonder if that's the reason why men here have hacking coughs and constant phlegmy throats that makes them want to spit everywhere. I don't think the weather is to blame.
s.b., the book sounds interesting, but the movie would be better, especially if it stars Salma Hayek showing off her assets.
terri:
i think salma hayek would fit in very well if the book were made into a movie. she would get the plum role of main change agent in the author's life (a colombian called paula) - her dialogue would be her biggest assets, btw.
here are two quotes:
"i helped create a covenant that guaranteed continued oil for america, safeguarded the rule of the house of saud, and assisted in the financing of osama bin laden and the protection of international criminals like uganda's idi amin."
"... i sometimes found myself outside my office, wandering among the desks of my staff, looking at those men and women who worked for me and feeling guilty about what i had done to them, and about the role we all played in widening the gap between rich and poor. i thought about the people who starved each day while my staff and i slept in first-class hotels, ate at the finest restaurants, and built up our financial portfolios."
like shyam (comment #1) would say, the world in 3-d, eh?
- s.b.
terri:
a minor correction - the quotes are from the book, not paula's dialogues.
- s.b.
[munna_bhai]
Obviously, people think that there is only physical abuse, but there is emotional abuse. This is much more subtle but more prevalent.
Getting beaten by husband and going back and not leaving them while is a social problem, has deep roots in psycology.
Both the abuser and abused get used to this way of life. The abused (In case of women), get attracted to this kind of abuse. I am not saying they enjoy it, but sub-consiously they are attracted to it.
Childhood abuse (sexual or physical or emotional) becomes an obsession in an adult. So if a child gets beaten by her parent, after he becomes an adult gets obsessive with abusive husband. This Band will never go.
This being an Indian Social problem is absurd. Physical abuse is pretty prevalent in western countries. But the problem is the same the women go back to their husbands because it is has become an attraction to the state of mind.
The thing is it never stops and has a long lasting impression for the future generations.
Anon - Wow are you really saying women are attracted to domestic violence! Lol. Lets ignore the fact that it cant be easy for her to walk out of a marriage, life as a single woman is probably not easy let alone safe in certain parts and in certain socities of India. Lets forget the social stigma attached to a divorced woman in India. Lets ignore the fact that most women are brain washed even as kids to be submissive. Lets forget the culture of 'kallaanalum purushan, etc etc'. Lets forget the fact that the woman concerned might think that she took vows to stay with him for life. Lets forget the intimidation involved. Lets forget the family pressure. Lets forget the manipulation by the abuser who might cry their eyes out and promise never to do it again. Lets forget all this and blame it on the woman being attracted to violence.
Also, are you saying that a child who was beaten by his/her parents, will be attracted to abusive partners? I give up
[munna_bhai]
Yes my comments are more related to psycology of the victim. I am not saying that each of this social problem that you have listed is going to alter the sub-conscious mind.
You have to think out of the box. Yes it is true that As a child when they get abused it becomes an attration when they grow up.
This is not something I am coming up with. You should look it up yourself.
I am not trying to justify the scenarios that you said or blaming the victim in any way.
This is true in case of male or female victim. My analysis is not gender based so please don't make it sound that way.
Do you know what you feel all your emotions are CHEMICAL REACTIONS in your brain? Thr hormones makes us what we are and how we react.
[munna_bhai]
You should look up the profiles of all serial killers. There is bound to be a pattern. They were all abused as children. So when they grow up abusing people aka killing them became their biggest attraction.
Please do your own research. This is the problem in our country. We always want to treat the symptoms but never the problem.
Problems like Depression are never even recognised in a society like ours.
"I believe the phenomenon can be explained like this:
An abusive father in childhood creates a feeling of lack of control.
As an adult the individual then seeks other abusive people essentially trying to recreating their childhood trauma to try to gain control over the situation
However, they are not successful and create a cycle of abuse. In this way it is possible for sources of fear in childhood to become sources of attraction latter on in life"
http://ifmr.ac.in/cmf/
http://www.grameenfoundation.org/what_we_do/microfinance_in_action/faqs/
TM, am hoping these two links will help. The first one is a research organization in Chennai that might be able to point to microfinance programs that might help the lady.
The second is a FAQ about microfinance and has a couple of lines on why these programs target women.
Hope you're doing OK.
Terri,
Where is your mommy?
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