Sad realities

Sad realities

I am angry, no may be confused, or perhaps sad. I don't know.
My maid Venkatamma about whom I wrote in an earlier post,lost her husband a few days ago. Yes, he tried his poison gimmick yet again, only this time the poison decided to take control of affairs. It was understandable that Venkatamma took it calmly in any case he was only her husband in name and ever since he left her for another woman she has been managing without him. So you assume that nothing changed in her life and it was business as usual? Wrong! She was made to go through rituals to tell her things were not the same any more. She was treated to the honours available to married women one last time to remind her she could not have them any more. Now she will not be allowed to use haldi, kumkum and bangles. Her son was furious and refused to look at her. So am I.But she tells me that she would be an object of ridicule in her village if she persisted in wearing these.
Who are these people to decide what she can have and can't - the same people who didnt raise their voice when the man left her for another woman and why is she afraid of their opinion? Why is she expected to be the "widow" of a man who failed to be her husband? And even if he had been an ideal husband, who decides how she mourns him?

I remember being angry as a young girl when I heard about my father's aunt who was married at 5 . The boy died a year later and the girl spent the rest of her life,60 years in mourning for a husband she hardly knew never knowing any of the pleasures of a teen ager or a young woman, never wearing a coloured sari all her life.

100 years later, the life for a woman in an indian village has not changed much. Perhaps it is easier for her to defy the customs as her son would support her but she wont as she wants acceptance from her society.
While scanning channels I hear stray dialogues from TV soaps asserting the need for preservation of tradition and culture and how women have a key role in that and I wonder if the above is also a part of a similar sentiment.

I don't know. I can't explain.But I am angry, may be confused or sad.