Once the abusive childhood phase of my life was over, I was a bit relieved. I was not getting beaten that much now and though uncle was still living with us, he was busy with his wife and children. We were still poor so I had started working as a tutor after my college time and also started sewing clothes for neighbors to earn money.
Four years passed by like that and then the next phase of nightmares started for me. The earthquake of 2005 left us homeless so my mother took us to live with some relatives until the city was habitable again. Lahore was the city of her dreams, so she took us there and we spent two weeks living with different relatives.
Two days before we were going to leave Lahore and go back to our own city, we were in a van going to a cousin of my mom. My sister and I were sitting in the front seat while my mom and the other two siblings were sitting behind us. There was a man sitting next to my mom. He was around 40 years old.
It was November, but it was still hot in Lahore. So my mom sighed loudly and said, “Oh what a heaven we lost and came into this hell”. The man next to her asked her about the heaven she had left and she started telling him about the earthquake as if she had lost some big mansions to the earthquake. I was already feeling cringed at her attention-seeking behavior and she was taking it to a whole new level. In the end, that man and my mom ended up exchanging phone numbers.
The next day she met him somewhere, along with my younger siblings because I had refused to go with her. When we came back to our hometown, my mom and that man were talking regularly on the phone. We were living in a tent provided by the army because there were not many buildings left to live in. And this whole situation was making my mom furious because ever since she had come back from Lahore, she was dreaming about living there.
After a month she told her father that there was a man from Lahore who wanted to marry her eldest, ME. She did not even ask me or consult me. She lied to my grandpa that she had done all the background check on the man through her friends in Lahore and that he was a nice and well to do man.
I was 20 at that time and he was double my age and I did not know anything about him. But my grandpa believed my mom and agreed to marry me off within a month. No one knew anything about that man except what he had told my mom on the phone. And still, they fixed a wedding date and I was afraid of refusing to marry because I had grown up into a scared and terrified girl. I could not even imagine saying no to my mom. So after a month, that man came with 15 of his friends and family and I was married to him.
I had not even seen that man properly. They took me with them and the long 16 hours journey started. I did not have a cell phone. On the way, I got to know that we were going to his village instead of Lahore because his family lived in a far off village while he was working in Lahore.
I was too tired and sleepy, wearing a heavy wedding dress that we wear in Pakistan. There were two women with me in the car and my husband was in the van with other people. I was not able to understand a word those women were speaking because that was some local language I had never heard before. I was constantly thinking about being alone with all those strangers. I was thinking what if this whole wedding thing is a sham and they sell me to a brothel or something because my family did not even know where were these people taking me.
After reaching his village a girl who could speak a little Urdu assisted me and I took a shower and slept right away because we had traveled all night. I had not spoken to my husband till then. I woke up with a tearing pain and screamed aloud. My husband had removed my trousers and had entered me without even waking me up or even trying to introduce himself, as it was our first meeting.
He put his hand firmly on my mouth and kept doing his thing but thankfully he was done soon and I was lying there in the worst pain I had experienced so far, bleeding. After getting done, he asked me to change clothes and bedsheets. When I did that, he simply slept. My pain was not subsiding at all but as I was still very tired I slept again.
At night the Urdu-speaking girl came to my room and gave me food. I tried to ask questions about her family and all. She told me that my husband had been married before and had two children but had divorced his first wife some years ago. I was shocked because my mom did not know it.
She also told me that I will not be living in Lahore with my husband because his family was expecting me to live in the village. Living separately with your husband was against the traditions of their village. Then a man came into my room whose head was bald as an egg. That was my husband without the wig he had been wearing during the wedding. I had no idea that he was wearing a wig. He was not a handsome or young man anyway but this deceit made my heart sink in despair.
I could not talk to my family for the first two days and when I finally did, my in-laws were all around me so I could not talk freely. After a week he left for Lahore, leaving me alone with his family whose language I did not understand. It was a mud house in the south of Pakistan. It was very hot weather, but there were no fans in the house. They used to spend the day under the shades of the trees that were inside their very wide front yard.
At night too they would all sleep outside to stay cool. I was not comfortable sleeping outside next to the other men of the family. So I would sleep inside in extreme humidity and mosquitos. Outside they used to create cow dung smoke to keep the mosquitos away. There was no gas in that village. They used to cook food on a cow dung fire. The kitchen was also outdoor. It had no walls or anything, it was just a mud stove under a tree.
I started taking part in cooking and cleaning, but it was very hard to cook in such extreme heat. In time I learned their language, enough to understand their meaning in general. I did not let them know that I understood them because I did not want to talk to any of them. They were so backward that most of the women of the family had only travelled in a motor vehicle for the first time in their lives when they came to my city for the wedding.
For four months I was like a prisoner there. I was not allowed to talk to my family in private. I never went outside the gates of that house for all those months. Neighborhood women were not allowed to talk to me. They used to call me blind (I wear glasses), clumsy, and ugly in their own language. And their food was very different from what I was used to eating.
After four months I started a hunger strike and refused to eat unless I went to Lahore to live with my husband. When he came home one weekend, he was very angry so he started beating me for making a scene. I still refused to eat and kept crying. Finally, he took me with him to Lahore.
In Lahore, he was living in a one-room apartment in a busy market. He would lock me in for the day and come back at night to unlock me. He said it was my punishment. I used to spend all my day in that room without a phone, TV, or books. I even started considering going back to the village because I was not locked in a room there. But then I got pregnant. And my mother-in-law refused to let me have back into her house because I was too demanding.
Now locking a pregnant wife in a room was not a good idea so he rented a house in a very poor neighborhood of Lahore. It had two rooms and a small cemented yard. I was happy there to have a real home for once in my life. I decorated that home with so much love. My husband had become more and more abusive, but I was used to being beaten so it did not feel strange.
I was too young to be a mother but I made a connection with the child inside me and I used to talk to it for hours. When my mom got to know that I was pregnant and in Lahore, she packed her bags and moved to Lahore with my younger siblings. She had no source of income and my grandpa was still paying for everything. She started living in the other room in my house.
The few happy days that I had in a house of my own were over now. She was there with all her drama and no money. She started asking my husband for favors. And he in return started looking down on my siblings and calling them rascals and thieves, and dogs. My husband and my mom both started manipulating me. I was so naïve that I got played in their hands.
My mother would talk about the wrongs of my husband as if I was his accomplice and I would defend him because I thought that’s what marriages were about. On the other hand, my husband would complain about my mom and siblings as if I invited them to live with me and again I would be defending my mom in front of him. Now when I think of it, I hate myself for being so stupid. In efforts to keep them all together, I became a shuttlecock.
When my son was born I was so happy. But that did not last long because my husband hated crying kids and he would beat his weeks-old son for crying at night. Things were going in a very bad way. I had to stay up all night with my son in my arms to keep him from crying. Motherhood at such a young age was consuming me and I was not able to keep up with housekeeping. So, my mom started taunting me for that.
Within a few months, I was pregnant again. My husband had left his job by then and was selling engine oil that he would bottle at home. I was in my third trimester when he needed me to help him in the process. I would sit for hours to put stickers on the bottles or seal them with an iron. He was getting deeper and deeper into his fraud schemes.
My daughter was born and this time I was just afraid. I did not have any energy to cater to the needs of two kids and a household with 8 people. By this time my husband had started beating my youngest brother for small mistakes and as usual, my mom never stopped him. Once he thrashed my brother so hard against a wall that his ear started bleeding, his left eardrum was perforated. He used to beat him and me both with belts.
My brother left school because he was failing again and again. He was a bright child, but I know his life had always been so hard. My sister started working as a salesgirl and finally, they rented a separate house. I also got a job as a receptionist meanwhile because my husband was home with kids making his oil or packing bad quality rice into expensive bags etc. I got my brother admitted to an art and design school because he always wanted to be an artist.
After two years like this, I was pregnant again. By this time my husband had become an outlaw due to his frauds. I left my job in the 8th month of pregnancy. When I gave birth to my third daughter we were dirt poor. All my kids were born via C-Section. When my daughter was just 2 weeks old, my husband ran away from home. He had taken all his clothes and everything so I was sure that he had gone for good.
When my landlord got to know about this, he told me that four months’ rent and bills were due. He gave me 2 weeks to pay him and evacuate the house. I had just given birth and I was 24, I had no father or family to help me. I went to someone I knew and asked for a job. He said he would love to give me work at his studio. He offered me juice then. I was drugged and then raped by him. When I came to my senses, he was not there so I came home with my life broken.
But money was still needed and there was no way for me but to go back to my old job and request them to have me back. The CEO of the company said he would give me advance money too and also the job, but there was one condition. He said he will arrange a house for me and my family to rent, but in return, I would have to sleep with him and his elder brother whenever they asked.
I had become numb with humiliation and hurt. I said yes to all his demands and got raped a second time while still menstruating from childbirth. I gave the money to the landlord and rented the house arranged by the company. The elder brother also slept with me and I got the job. After a month my husband one day came to my home and told my mom that he had become rich and wanted me and the kids to live with him.
Instead of being angry, I was happy that he came back and I would be a respected housewife again. So I packed my bags, took my kids, and left with him for whatever unknown city he was taking us to. Once again my mom did not do any background check on his story.
It was a cold December night. Around 2 AM the bus stopped at a bus stop in a small city. He took out all our bags and said that we were going to his village because the police were still after him. I knew I would be a prisoner for life if I went to his village. I refused and he started beating me in front of the people.
Someone said that they would call the police if he did not stop. So, he took my elder two kids, all the bags and disappeared in the darkness leaving my youngest daughter in my arms. The bus people had seen it all so they got me a seat on a bus that was going to Lahore. I had no money or phone. I took a Rickshaw from the Lahore bus stop and went home where my mom paid the fare.
That episode made the bosses at the office worried about their reputation so they fired me and asked me to leave the house they had got me. We found a small house nearby and I started making paintings and selling them to provide for food and rent. Meanwhile, a friend’s boyfriend, who was a lawyer offered to help me without a fee. He filed the case of the kidnapping of my kids and also for my divorce. After almost two months I got my kids back and also the divorce.
My brother got a good job in an advertising agency and my sisters also got small jobs. After the struggle of a year, I also got a job in an NGO. I forced my mom to take care of my kids so that I could focus on my work. I completed my bachelor’s and master’s degree too. I worked hard and got a job at BBC Pakistan. In all this, I could not spend much time with my kids. I regret that a lot.
My sister is happily married now. The other works in a good company and my brother is a very successful artist and earns very well. Though he did not even pass the 10th standard. I moved to another city with my kids to stay away from my toxic mother because she will never change. My kids are teenagers now and I am happy with them.
That’s the story of my life. I might write about some events in detail some other time, but this article has become so long already. Thank you to everyone who showed so much love on my childhood part and encouraged me to write all about my life.
Here is the link to my story about my abusive childhood if you have not read that one.
