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My in-laws have often said that I don't have a right to behave as if this is my home, and my parents have told me that their home is no longer my home as they have done my kanyadaan.
My in-laws have often said that I don’t have a right to behave as if this is my home, and my parents have told me that their home is no longer my home as they have done my kanyadaan.
Where is my home? This is something that I have been trying to answer from quite sometime.
A few days ago, in Ramayana on the TV, in the scene where Lord Rama is getting ready to leave for vanvaas (forest stay for 14 years), Devi Sita approaches him and asks permission to leave along with him. When Mata Kaushalya tries to stop her, she replies that “When my husband is going to stay in the forest, then how can I stay in luxury?”
I can probably agree to that, but the next thing she said was shocking. Devi Sita said, “When I was leaving Mithila after my marriage, my mom told me that this is no longer your home, from now on where ever your husband stays is your home.” This raised many questions in my mind.
I got married 3 years back and had to shift my city to stay with my husband’s family immediately after marriage. I used to stay away from my parents too, but near enough that I would be going home almost every weekend.
After my marriage, my parents shifted to near my in-laws place, I am not their only child, but their eldest. But in the last 3 years I have gone to visit them only 7 times, once was for my sister’s wedding.
The reason I’m given every time I want to go there is “The daughter-in-law of the house should not go to her parents place so frequently”. Just to let you know, my husband has an elder sister who has been staying with her parents for almost 2 and half years out of the 3 years that she has been married, she did not stay even for 3 days with her in-laws, just fought with them and came back 3 days after the wedding.
Let me tell you my experiences and then I would really love to hear from you guys what you think about it.
No right on my in-laws’ home
If I get up and do not immediately wake my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law (yes, there are 2 of them), I get to hear “Khud ko ghar ki maharani samajhti hai, isiliye khud uth ke ghum rahi h, kisi ko utha nahi rahi (She feels she is the queen of the house, thus she got up and is moving around the house without waking anyone).”
My money, but not my home?
Me and my husband bought a flat, I was forced to pay 75% of the downpayment and I will be paying 75% of the EMI for the next 25 years, but I accepted it, but when it came to choosing the interiors I was told, “Jab apna ghar banwana tab apni marzi chalana (When you make your own house, then do what you want).”
Accused of ‘not paying attention’ here
I used to handle the documentation work of my family before marriage, things like aadhar card, passport, IT returns, anything that could be done online, I would do it for them. Once I had just mentioned it to my MIL and she said, “Maayke mein hi dhyaan rahta hai, isliye to idhar mann nahi lagta tumhara (you are always thinking of your parents home, that is why you do not feel interested in anything here)”
The ‘go to Pakistan… err… maika’ threat
If I do any mistake, however small it maybe, the most common dialogue I get to hear is, “Agar mann nahi lagta kaam karne mein, to apne maa-baap ke ghar chale jao (If you do not feel like doing work, go to your parents place)”. And this is not just from my MIL, but both my SILs as well, one of them is staying with her parents almost since her marriage, how is that even fair.
No right to feel sad
I am not allowed to cry here,“Iss ghar mein tumhe aansu girane ka koi haak nahi hai (You have no right to shed tears in this house)”
No right to call my friends
In the last 3 years, I have never invited any friends here, because I have been told that I don’t have a right to do that.
There are so many more such anecdotes, I don’t want to go through them all, I am sure most of you are facing or have faced similar situations. My husband doesn’t say a word, in fact at times he is worse than them.
I had tried to talk to my parents about it, their reactions were not something I was expecting. My father came here and told them what he thinks about all this on their face and for that I was asked to choose between both the families and I chose the wrong family. My mom also said the same thing that Devi Sita heard from her mother, she asked me to stay here, because the place where my husband is my home, and it’s his decision how he wants to keep me.
That day onwards I understood that I don’t have a home, my own mother told me that the place I grew up calling home is no longer my home as they have done my kanyadaan. And here in the last 3 years I have heard multiple times that this is not my home that even I myself do not feel like home here, then where is my home?
It seems that even though more than thousand years have passed, the plight of married woman in the country still remains the same and probably will stay the same for another thousand years, if this is how things will continue.
Recently I started feeling that my office is my home, it was one place I could be myself, talk to people I want, be free, but thanks to the corona virus I lost that home as well. So now I have just accepted that I will never have a home.
Image source: pixabay
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