Disciplined in love!

The first slap from him resounded in her head like the crashing of an exquisite piece of glass vase on a hard, granite floor. She had not even noticed that the impact of it had sent her reeling in a corner, her body shaking with cold chills on a hot summer’s afternoon. He stormed out of the room that started spinning around her. Then darkness descended mercifully and she did not remember anything else for a while.

When she slowly regained her consciousness, it was not without a feeling of sunkenness… and guilt! “What have I done wrong?” “What did I do to piss him off? Must have been something, I am sure.” He had returned after a smoke and was watching TV in the other room. She kept replaying the heated conversation in her head that had led to the moment of the whacking.

Trisha was an engineer from one of the top institutes in the country, had landed herself a job in a fiercely competitive corporate environment and she was better at her work than most of her peers. Brought up in a very progressive household, she was a well-read feminist. She could discuss politics and scoops with equal ease. She had excelled over a number of her peers to be placed during the campus-recruitment. She had been loved by her friends and teachers, through her growing up years, for her spunkiness.

She was also madly in love with Aneesh – they have been friends since school, shared class notes and helped each other through every exam. They had been married for the past couple of years. He had kissed her under a tree in full monsoon showers, and she had kissed him right back. He had moved into her two-bedroom apartment, brought his car with him. She helped him with writing his resume and making his presentations. He warmed dinner for her, lovingly woke her up and fed her from his plate while she would sit there dozing off. She loved that about him. Their parents visited them now and then.

What she was scared of was his anger that had revealed itself in the past one year. The more they had grown into the relationship, the more control he started having over her life – the friends she kept, the amount of time she spent on the phone with her family, and the number of hours she invested at work. His reactions were incrementally unpleasant, sometimes even neurotic. At times, she returned home to find an intimidating look on his face. On one such evening, after returning home, she had made an attempt to give him a hug to make up for the extra time she spent at work. She was met with an abrupt shove, followed by a curse under his breath. After a few such instances, now she has learnt to quietly and dump her laptop on the sofa and head straight to the kitchen.

Today, in the middle of her futile explaining she felt a blinding clap on her face! One that was not only broke her spirit, but also shut down her mind. For the rest of the night there was a flurry of emotions going through her. She was trying to think of what she had said or done. At times she went livid with anger with every muscle in her body protesting this humiliation. Then it occurred to her how much he loved her. She thought of the kiss under the tree. She thought of what her father had always taught her “a strong man never hits to control.” She also thought of her mother who hit her to discipline her, but also loved her to bits.

Some five odd years later........

Trisha was now in Singapore. She was on the phone after a long day at work. Her mother’s concerned voice spoke from the other end. “How did you tolerate that idiot for so long, Trisha?!......”

Trisha has been hearing this rhetorical for the past year or so. Eversince she separated from Aneesh. She was quizzed by her friends, his friends, his family and her family. His friends and family made ill out of her intentions - “If he was such an abusive guy, how could you not tell immediately? It took you seven years to chicken out. And who knows… you are in a high-profile job, you must have tried to dominate him and the relationship!” Hell had been raised about her broken marriage for the past year.

It was exhausting. People asked this question to empathize with her or to doubt her. And she had asked herself this question over and over again - every morning when she woke up, every night when she went to sleep. It was exhausting.

Over the years, she had also slowly made up her mind that Aneesh was not good for the relationship. She had come to guard herself and the relationship from him and his volatile moods. White lies had crept in to save her skin. She was never dishonest or had any ill-bearing, had not had any illicit relationships. But lying had become a survival mechanism for her to save herself a few slaps here and there that had become the order of the day. She had not spoken to her parents, to keep them from judging Aneesh or her relationship. After all it was her relationship! She was responsible for it, wasn’t she? And not that he hit her all the time. He loved her too. Many a times, he only threatened to hit her. Lately, that had been enough. Then one day she just was not thinking -- she walked out. Aneesh was as broken as she was! He threw tantrums, called friends. He pursued her, knelt down before her. But she was no longer thinking.

Today was their seventh first-kiss anniversary. Her heart still pined to be owned in a relationship, to be held and hugged warmly. She was talking to her mother with whom she shared her deepest thoughts. She told her how she missed him. Her mother started off with the usual rhetorical, “How did you tolerate this idiot for so long, Trisha? I cannot believe he hit you. You are educated, you are strong and independent. Your father and I did everything to make sure you get the very best of everything.”

Suddenly, she went into a tizzy. She snarled at her mother………

-   “Do you remember, Mom, that you hit me so many times when I was a kid? I used to hate it! There were nights I cried into my pillow not admitting my tears to you because I was a strong kid. I did not speak to you for days. Why didn’t you think then that hitting me was wrong?”

-  “Yes, but that was different. I wanted you to be the best kid ever. And you know how much I love you, Trish!..... This is very harsh of you to compare me with him”

-  “Yes mum, but in my head I revolted when you hit me. Dad never raised his hand on me to control me. But you? ”

-   “Oh c’mon elders who love you sometimes hit you to discipline you. And look I agree that you were not so bad a kid, but I had you when I was only nineteen. At that age I was dealing with so many things within a joint family. Ha!... What did I know about parenting then! You were my first baby and I wanted people to see you as the best child!”

-   “People who, Ma? How many of them are here with me today to see what I am going through!”

-  “That’s not the point, kid. You’re in India, not some western country where they do not allow you to hit the child. And plus people here have some moral standards!”

-   “And what moral standards are those? Who decides those standards? Where are they written down? When did I sign up for them? Oh Mummy, I love you so. You are my favorite person on earth, Mum. But do you still not see what you did? As a little kid when I was hit, I looked around me to see if anyone else had been audience to my humiliation. Inside of me I tried to steel my nerves for the impending slap, and put up a brave front when it came. I started lying to you about little things that did not matter. And as hours went by, we cooled off and made peace. Over the years, my mind made peace with the idea that the person who loves you can occasionally hit you. Do you not see that even though Papa and my education taught me that a man hitting me was a bad thing, the little kid in me believed that he could hit me if he loved me? This is how slowly I made peace with Aneesh also, Ma! Every time he hit me I second-guessed myself; thought I was flawed. The little child in me justified him!”

There was a silence. A long pause, broken only by a sigh! Trisha was surprised at how precisely her mind had connected the dots in one moment of deep anguish. For once she has been able to answer with clarity, coherence and conviction, the rhetorical about her abuse!

Slowly, her mother spoke up. “My child! My sweetheart! ….. I ask for your forgiveness today. When I hit you, I considered it right, because I was hit by my father too – but who also loved me very much. I was young when I had you. I did not realize how I was damaging your adult mind. I did what I thought was right, what I was taught was right. I am very sorry, my little angel.”

Tears welled up and rolled down Trisha’s eyes. She sank down to the floor and started sobbing. Her mother wept too, consoling Trisha, apologizing again and again, caressing her little girl with her comforting words from miles away.

That night Trisha thought a cloud lifted from her mind. She finally felt liberated. Her mother’s remorse finally brought her to the peace of the right kind - after many years, she could now tell the difference between love, discipline and abuse without the child in her bundling them up together. Her heart still pined to be loved and held, but no longer by any person who had the capability to damage her soul.