Jugnu’s Story

Who Is The Jugnu Project Named After?

Written by: Zohra Ahmed

It has been two years since Jugnu passed away, on 17th of November, 2021.

The news of her passing came as a shock to everyone on both sides of the family. It was also a relief, knowing that her suffering was now over for good.

Thirty years of violence. Thirty years of hospital visits. Thirty years of visits to shrines and aalims (faux religious scholars). Thirty years of neighbors steadfastly ignoring the screams and shouts coming from Jugnu’s home every other day / night, but continuing to spy from over the tops of their respective balconies; if only to catch a glimpse of the unlucky woman. Thirty years of witnessing her pain; and whispering behind closed doors and gossiping in hushed voices.

Thirty years of criminal, communal silence.

Her death had finally put an end to it all.

With it, came the hope for her redemption. Jugnu could now live a better, happier life in Jannat (Heaven). She was destined for God’s favors on the Final Day, having lived her life in pain and misery. Instead of judging her for being a weakling and unable to stand up to her abusive husband, they were now praising her sabr (patience) in the face of years of violence.

In the words of her daughter-in-law, she was “a Martyr”. For all the suffering she had witnessed and experienced while on this Earthly world, she had been absolved of all sins. What better death could there be?

It takes a village to destroy a life.

Born to two loving parents in an upper class class family in Karachi, Jugnu was the second of three daughters daughter. The four siblings (my uncle was the youngest) were mostly raised by their elder sister, as their parents were usually busy trying to make ends meet each month.

My mother, the eldest of all the siblings, was tasked with the responsibility of ensuring they earned enough to keep the family is a very comfortable position. Jugnu was the baby of the family — and treated as such. She was delicate and ladylike (unlike her other two sisters) and loved taking care of the family home. She was also outgoing and career oriented.

Jugnu’s life did not take a turn for the worst overnight. It happened in stages. It took place in phases.

At each stage, there was a family member, a neighbor or a relative; who either pushed her back into the abusive relationship she was trying to leave, or who ended up supporting the abuser and his family by remaining a silent witness to her pain.

My maternal grandmother died from illness when my mother was in the 10th grade. At the tender age of 16 years old, she was suddenly the head of the family, responsible for the wellbeing of her siblings and their father. Without the support of a maternal figure in their lives, the siblings were left in the loving care of their paternal aunts and uncles. But they soon realized that, in the end, they would have to look out for themselves.

The abuse started with emotional blackmail from family members at the time of Jugnu’s marriage. Nadeem was her maternal cousin, who recently come back from London with an internationally acclaimed Accounting degree to his name.

Beautiful as she was, with long flowing black hair and porcelain skin, his was not the only marriage proposal she received. Her maternal aunts, however, were adamant to get her married into the family. They bemoaned the fate of all three daughters of their sister being married off into families outside their own. Their deceased sister’s memories would go with them. How would they keep in touch with each other now?

Even though Jugnu had several other offers of marriage (some from her paternal family, as well), she chose Nadeem for the simple reason that his mother was her mother’s sister. She decided to marry Nadeem out of love for her mother.

It was the biggest mistake of her life.

The abuse started soon after the wedding. It started with small statements that were deliberately aimed at destroying her self-esteem.

“Why do you have so much perfume on?” her mother-in-law would say. “The women in our household don’t act like prostitutes! Stop putting on so much perfume and attracting the men.”

Or she would berate Jugnu for being beautiful and tempting others with her looks. “Tie up your long hair! Are you trying to tempt someone?”

Her sisters-in-law would humiliate Jugnu in private and public; berating her for little things and putting her down at every opportunity. “Why won’t you just die?” asked the younger sister-in-law once.

Jugnu, unused to such conversation and blatant disrespect, had no idea how to respond. She had never been treated with such hostility before. After a time, she began to answer back.

The abuse worsened.

The physical beatings grew more frequent as her mother- and sisters-in-law deemed fit. Her husband would happily mete out the punishment.

When her first borne was little more than a year old, Jugnu decided to run away. She escaped with her child to her sisters’ home. It would not be the last time she would decide to do so.

Trauma cycles take generations to break.

At Jugnu’s funeral, many of the friends, neighbors and family members who had gathered to mourn her passing were understandably moved. Tears streamed down the faces of the women as they held hands and tried to comfort one another. Most of the men sat outside in the verandah in silence.

I remember feeling strangely removed at the funeral, as I stood to one side in the room where Jugnu’s body lay, wrapped in a white shroud. I scanned the room, taking in the weeping and the wailing. Who were all these people who had suddenly shown up out of nowhere to mourn her death, as if she had meant anything to them while alive? Where was this hue and cry when she was alive? What was the point of all this drama now? She was dead.

I remember watching her bhabi (brother-in-law’s wife) hugging the doorframe and sobbing uncontrollably. It was enough to break one’s heart. If one had a heart to break, that is. If she had had a heart to break, at least. She had made Jugnu’s life a living hell in that prison of a house. The abuse had not stopped with Jugnu’s husband — it had only started there. So why were all these people, who had delighted in her misery, and who had pushed her to her wit’s end, until she ended up in the hospital, a shattered shell of a woman — why were they so distraught?

Or was it simply a coverup? Their “grief” was for all the world to see.

I was too emotionally removed from the situation at the time. So were my mother and cousins. We stood in silence next to the body, taking it all in.

Most of the women were huddled together in groups, gossiping about Jugnu’s horrid life and nodding at my mother, aunt and uncle; who had all arrived as part of Jugnu’s immediate family. Her siblings. The three people who truly ever cared about her, yet were unable to help her in any meaningful way throughout her life, in the face of both societal pressure and financial constraints.

Their hatred for her husband, Nadeem, grew from their inability to find her and her children a safe haven. In a society where a woman’s worth is directly proportional to the name of the man she is connected with, and how he treats her; her own worth is next to nothing. Not to be too harsh, but a divorced woman (especially if she happens to also be a single mother) probably has less value in our society than a donkey cart. Unless she somehow manages to earn a decent living at par with the men (which is quite a feat in our patriarchal society), she is destined to a life of near invisibility.

If a survivor wishes to separate from her abuser, she will have to share custody of the children — if not give it up outright. In Pakistan, the father has the right to “take care of” the children. They considered the father’s property, and, as such, he cannot be deprived of his rights; be it visitation or the authority to make decisions for the children’s “best interest”, as he sees fit.

The State has failed to provide safety and security for its more vulnerable members of society. There are no Social Services; no proper shelter homes to run to in order to escape the abuse at home and little to no economic opportunity(s) for single mothers. They say it takes a village to raise a child.

I say it also takes a village to destroy a life.

Jugnu was emotionally blackmailed and coerced into staying with her abuser. Time and again she would try to escape; and time and again she would be brought back by an aunt, a cousin or a relative. Someone would intervene to “save” her family.

But nobody ever truly wanted to save her.

After thirty years of cyclical abuse, her body decided to give way. At first, it was just “weight gain”, followed by high blood pressure and diabetes. Slowly her kidneys started to fail her and then her heart. She was in and out of the hospital every other day. Dialysis was routine. Dark spots started appearing on her arms and legs, where the veins had burst, or been pricked one too many times; until there were no more veins left to jab needles into.

The last time I saw Jugnu was when she had been admitted into Aga Khan Hospital, in July of 2021. Her lungs had filled up with water and her abdomen had swollen to three times its size for the same reason. She looked heavily pregnant, as though she was about to deliver at any moment. I remember her lying lifeless, swathed in white sheets on top of the clean hospital bed. There were wires and tubes connecting her to different monitors. The doctors said the she was “resting”.

Her husband, Nadeem, refused to pay for the hospital bill. He didn’t want to take Jugnu to Aga Khan Hospital. It was among the most expensive hospital in the city. It also had state of the art facilities that his wife could utilize, but that was not his problem. Why couldn’t they have just taken her to the clinic at the corner of their neighbourhood in Gulberg? It would have been faster. They could have just bought an oxygen cylinder at home and attached the mask to it. Jugnu could have been treated at home, he declared. He was a millionaire in his own right, owning different real estate properties in different cities of Pakistan. But this was a waste of his time and money.

Sairah, Jugnu’s younger sister, had come to Pakistan from abroad specifically to meet her sister. She promised to foot the entire bill. He would not have to worry about a dime. Taking her at her word, Nadeem reluctantly agreed.

I remember how Jugnu’s health and demeanor had drastically changed while under the care of the nurses at the hospital. Everyone — from the doctors to the nurses — knew she was a survivor of domestic violence. They could see the signs; yet they all chose to remain silent about the obvious. Why involve the police unnecessarily, in a country where the security personnel are usually the worst of the lot? They come from the same sociopsychological backgrounds as the people committing the crimes. The husbands are considered the owners of their property (the wives and children). Getting a domestic violence survivor’s medicolegal procedure done is usually a hassle, as a result. What hope is there for change, after all?

Jugnu’s sisters remained at the hospital day in and day out, only taking turns to go home and change. She slowly became more animated. Instead of her zombie-like self, she began regaining some of her humor and her eyes started to sparkle whenever I would visit.

However, she would quickly revert back to her quiet self anytime Nadeem would appear at the door of her room. His loud presence seemed to cause her to shrink, as though trying to make herself invisible. But what abuser has ever allowed their victim to remain invisible for too long?

The same was true for anytime her own daughter would come to visit. “Abba ki chamchi hay (she’s her father’s bootlicker)’, she would mutter and become completely silent after Amina’s arrival. It was surprising that she hated her daughter so much.

And tragic that she truly had no one to turn to.

I will never forget the way Jugnu physically wilted on the day she was told she was “better now” and would have to return back home. Back to her abuse of 30 long years. Back to her prison on this earth.

“Haan, jaana tou parega (yes, I will have to go),” she had said softly in response to my Khala, asking her if she was ready to leave the hospital. I remember how we all cried together then, huddled together as though it would be the last time we would see her.

It really was.

She passed away after various medical complications on 17th of November 2021.

Her death put an end to her abuse.

Let her memory live on to create a better world.

In 2016, tired of being helpless in the face of such oppression, I had decided to write about some of her ordeals in an article for Dawn.com. I chose to write it under a pseudonym. Ironically, the name I chose was Jugnu’s real name — Mehar.

I’m grateful that the piece resonated the way it did with such a wide audience, which was testament to how relatable abusive relationships and domestic violence are in desi society. I decided that the least that I could do would be to put Jugnu’s name on an article detailing some of the miseries she had been forced to bear.

On 17th November 2021, upon learning about her death, a silent rage over took me. I seethed with anger at the society that turned blind and deaf when faced with intimate partner violence. I was angry at the judicial and legal system that had so spectacularly failed its women and children.

You can read the full twitter thread (and its responses) here.

I decided to microblog my pain and the rage seething through me. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect the response that I got. Thousands of people answered back, showing support and sharing their own stories of witnessing domestic violence within their families and immediate social circle(s). It was a surreal experience.

That was when the idea for The Jugnu Project (TJP) was born.

The Jugnu Project is a digital resource centre dedicated to helping survivors of domestic violence and abuse across Pakistan. We help connect survivors with Legal Aid services, get access to Deep Trauma Therapy and find shelter and resources for financial independence.

We are a crowd-funded resource and are blessed to have such a dedicated number of supporters across the world. Our work is dedicated to Jugnu’s memory, and to the thousands of victims of domestic violence who have simply been wiped away from our collective memories. We would create a safer, better society for survivors of domestic violence.