The Day My Life Changed Forever

The day my life changed forever…was an ordinary day, I was visiting my hometown for summer excursion.

That day I needed to make a trip alone to market as everybody was busy. A 19 year old going in public transport in a state like Uttar Pradesh led to my mother giving exhortation about not to converse with strangers. Then started my transport ride .I had brought earphones for my 35 minutes travel. I was busy in my world listening to songs when a lady with her two year old son sat opposite me. The thing that startled me from my daydream about that woman was her face. She had an enormous bruise on her face that she tried to hide by draping a stole but I could still notice it as she was sitting just opposite me. I had an inkling how that bruise was placed on her face but I didn’t say anything. After a while her two year son woke up and as I was just observing her from my peripheral view, I noticed more bruises on her body. The bruises were horrendous and I couldn’t keep quite. So I asked her, breaking my mom’s first rule -don’t talk to strangers, but I didn’t have the strength to keep quite. So I asked her bluntly as why she didn’t just leave her husband. She was shocked that I had the audacity to even raise such a question. She replied by saying that she was married to him and he was everything for her. This reply was something that didn’t sit well with me as I couldn’t understand how she could still think that man was her everything after how he was treating her.

The feminist in me took the front seat and told her, that how can shetell that he is everything when he is treating her so badly and she should just leave him and go back to her parents. As they would surely help her and it will help her son also to have a better life. The answer she gave me will always be the one thing that I will always remember. When I was done with my question she first gave me a sad smile and told me that as I didn’tstay here that’s why I was speaking like that. She told me that in this area when a girl is born the parents start thinking of how much dowry they have to give in marriage, when she get married the burden on them decreases, according to me she should go to her parents but what about when they knew about her condition but they won’t accept her, if she came back home. As they have done their part, they got her married and it’s her responsibility to make her husband happy whichever way she can. I was shocked wasa understatement , I couldn’t grasp how her parents could tell her that she was on her own after seeing what that disgusted man had done to her .

Seeing my expressions, she told me not to feel bad for her as she had gotten used to the adversity. I told her I still wish she could go somewhere safe atleast for her child. With tears in her eyes she said that there was no place where she could go , as she was illiterate she won’t get any work and won’t be able to take care of her son. Also, her husband won’t so easily let hertake herson with heras it will be matter of his ego. She told that she didn’t mind being the subject of his physical abuses if she could save her son from it and if she leaves then he will start hurting her son. Her reply left me speechless, I understood that day what selfless love is all about, what a mother is ready to go through just for her child. The lady got down with me at my stop, I just couldn’t let her go like that so I told her to come with me to the doctor for once as I was scared that she may get infected .

She was hesitant to come with me so I told her that she needs to come not for her but at least for her son .This convinced her and I took her to the doctor.After getting checked by the doctor when we were to part our waysshe gave me the tightest hug ever wherein she broke down and told me that no one had ever cared so much about her in a long time .The only thing I could do their was blink tears back. The whole incident took around 1 hr but it changed my perception about so many things. It’s was so easyfor me to say to her that she should leave that man , but I never considered what she would go through ,what were the conditions at her home ,was their anyone to help her out . I was enraged that how can she let a man beat her but never thought if she had an option, never considered whether she even had a safe place to go to, never considered that a person who beat his wife so badly, would he let her go so easily as it will embarrass him in front of the whole society.

Thatwas the day I realised it’s easy to give suggestions but it’s more important to know the whole situation. That day gave me a life goal that I want to make it into reality i.e. open an NGO for women and children who are domestically abused at home.To try to provide them a safe haven for them to grow and become independent and live the way they want to live their life.