Feeling helpless!
In the mood to talk about what emotion is uppermost in my head today and so here goes……..
We have this college gang of ours, 4 guys and we 3 females, all middle aged and on different parts of the globe, recently tied in together on Watsapp. So suddenly its like our youth is revived and we simply escape into this pseudo world of chats, jokes, forwards, good morning, good night messages, etc that keeps us busy and entertained throughout the day and night(b’cos of the different time zones). The topics discussed are wide and range anywhere from food, health, politics, movies, etc. Why even one of them was finding solace in chatting away amidst an accident just to ensure her faculties are kept alert!
Right in the middle of our cozy apple-cart suddenly lands a video yesterday, posted by one of us, that was simply shocking, completely changing the mood of the entire group! Not sure if the others looked through it cos didnt hear any reactions but the two of us who managed to watch it were outraged with the violence we saw. Was a hidden recording of an almost naked father(only in his briefs)sitting on the floor and teaching his son(about 5ish maybe), something in his school book and constantly kicking the boy for every mistake he made. The more the father kicked the more the son erred and he was kicked off the floor several times, picked up, made to sit on the floor and kicked again, only to fly off farther. The language spoken was something we could’nt understand, just as the sound of some TV newsreader going on in the background. The recording was happening through a crack in the closed door and so there were several instances of black outs and finally after about 4 long minutes, it ended with the father picking the son up by his neck, almost choking him and then banging him on the floor like a rag doll. I quickly deleted the video but the memory lingered on……
Couldn’t help wondering what the state of the mother would be, watching this violence helplessly unfold in front of her, every day. For me personally the story was over after I deleted the video but what about the characters in the video? what could be the provocation for this kind of violence against an innocent helpless child? Were there other children in that house suffering similarly too? Was that his own child or his step child that he could find no sympathy for the fear written so loudly on the child’s face and body language? was he drunk and not in his right senses? Was the father a victim himself during his childhood and so thought nothing of this kind of violence perpetrated under the guise of disciplining? If a tender child like this was treated so harshly what would be the state of the mother? Was it the mother herself recording this silently in a bid to seek help? Didnt she have the power to stop this or atleast walk out of this to a more dignified hell? Felt so very helpless myself and angry at the violence and desperation, that I could do nothing at all but watch silently and pray for peace for all 3 of them(the father, son and the person recording this).
But still I wasn’t satisfied and felt I simply took the easy way out here just to satisfy my conscience. There have been stray instances where my maids(househelp ladies) have come crying about the violence in their homes when their husbands have returned home drunk. Atleast there I had the satisfaction of being able to do something for them. If money was the problem I’d give them to tide by but obviously that never helped and some even took advantage of my generosity . Tried counselling few of the husbands who would always promise not to drink or atleast not get violent, which always ended up with them going back home and beating my maids black and blue that they wont ever dare to carry such stories back to me. For one of my maids I even went to the extent of purchasing a porn book with vivid pictures to be given to her husband so that he could satisfy his animalistic urges in the privacy of his bathroom rather than display it right in front of his 3 teenage daughters in their all-in-one room living space, in the middle of the night! But one thing common Ifound in the few instances I was involved in, is that all the husbands though perpetual drunks and suspicious wife beaters at night, were the most loving, caring, remorseful human beings during the day time, that the wives would always feel sorry and forgive them each and every day. And this became a daily ritual that after sometime I think Imyself got hardened to the stories I would hear each day. None of the wives were willing to file a police case nor leave their husbands to try and live a better life. I would always wonder what it was that kept these ladies tied into the relationship- fear, money, helplessness, love? But there again I felt helpless to either drive better sense into them nor entice them to come out with the dream of a better life.
So apart from feeling for all these people that touch my life in some way or the other, there seems to be nothing much i am able to do to either change the situation for them or for me! Frankly speaking I’m afraid to get involved with the several NGOs in the state that work at helping such helpless women b’cos of the hurt it causes me and the subsequent repercussions in my home and family. Personally b’cos of my own experiences, I feel there is hardly much of an improvement one can bring about in such helpless people and so feel it a waste of time and efforts. Life seems so unfair for some people and it is all blamed on our previous birth Karmas! Gosh! How does one even know who what where and what one did in our previous births to deserve such violence in this birth? Every single person wants to feel loved in this life and if fate meted out something different, isnt it such a helpless feeling?
