With hands that have a tremor to them, I begin writing, trying to quell my right hand with the left so that my pen in reflex (or I would like to think empathy) is not shaking as well, and thus this column aborts itself. Domestic violence. The phrase usually conjures a scene between husband and wife with the husband slapping around the wife, and she, in retaliation, flinging a glass or whatever is in her nearby reach to throw in his face. Or a mother-in-law dragging her son’s wife by her long braid demanding an explanation for the jar of biscuits being less than they, by rule of law, should be. With the rest of the family, considering it a way of life, the prerogative of the Eastern ‘Saas’. This sort of domestic assault not known to the Western world. Household barbarism might in case of a joint family be an oft occurrence between brothers, especially if they belong to a business family, squabbling over why was it that in a given month, more money was appropriated by the other, when equal amount of work had been put in—so the siblings are at each other’s throats, shoving one another and therefore, in the process the dining table, laden with food, might be overturned. The casseroles of curry and what not, broken in this ‘brotherly’ clash.
Here I am not referring to a household which might not be financially too well off, that possibly had to slave away the day to make ends meet… this about lower, middle, upper-middle and the affluent. As goes the saying, ‘Class no Bar’. However, in which register would one log in the brutality perpetuated by one’s own child? Which box can one club in the thrashing of a mother, father or both, by a child being flayed by ill-tempered hands rankled at the very presence of their existence? Or without creating an acrimonious atmosphere, the day was not worth getting by? And yes, before this pen that has with each passing word been able to muster the courage to resolutely take the next step, it is imperative to add that savagery spurred by kids in their late teens (even earlier, since I have painfully documented facts) and offspring well into their twenties is again an Eastern phenomenon. In America, England, Canada, etc., this category, or species of ‘descendants’, would find themselves discarded, disowned with immediate effect straightaway, supported in entirety by the police, the law.
Before coming to our most demonstratively protective and dramatically dutiful police with shuddering fingers (which feel more like they are palpitating!), I narrate a deadly night’s tale. (And here I thought that the tremble had stopped but the nearer I get to this horrific account, I experience the return of the spasms but thankfully my pen retains its unwavering, undaunted single-mindedness and so, to an extent, silencing or rather snuffing out feeling-faint fingers.) Before advancing, must state, that I still am in the process of, with hell-bent fanaticism, gathering statistics of domestic violence by grown-up children in our country, beginning with Gurugram. Now to come to the blasphemous episode. Last Sunday, Raksha Bandhan. One of my cousin’s son, now 24 years old, who had gone astray for over a decade, and with each passing day growing more and more empowered despite being put in Rehab Resorts—yes, rehab haven with suites for the patients designed like state-of-the-art lounging huts, bamboo walls and chairs deep enough to sink in, to fall into a dreamy slumber. This simply describing one of the high-ended Rehab Retreats where there is counseling, yoga, billiards, swimming with all luxuries at one’s feet, not to forget the gourmet menu. Of course, these honeypot camps are only for the elite or those ready to mortgage their property, sell their gold handed down by one’s mother, who in turn was gifted so from her mother… For the offspring to get back on track, to rid oneself of a fogged-out mind of drugs and alcohol and to put a full-stop to an immoral lifestyle; to find a purpose in life. To cleanse the soul, the body and mind. On that fateful Sunday, the young man, went violent like never before. I shan’t get into how he had for the past couple of days prior to that day, been behaving, sparing no cuss words for his powerless father and an unprotected mother.
Returning home from God knows where, he on a rampage—flinging the dining table, sofas, tea-trolley with demonic force, smashing into smithereens crystal bowls, tearing books, hurling the fridge to the ground and then stomping on it with his shoes. The father in a bid to stop him sustained many palpable injuries. His rapidly ageing parents fleeing into the adjoining room, where my cousin was shaking like a leaf. And then this possessed person, with diabolic fiendish energy, headed to the door double-bolted by the fearful trio, in a bid to knock it down. The reason being murderous intent since he was screaming how aged people had no business to live and mothers, well, they were now a matter of disuse, redundant at his age. These visuals fall short. Somehow, with the door almost going to be battered down, the police arrived. Viewed the savage ruins, the blood-thirsty air and apathetically took a few pictures before taking him away. Releasing the remorseless fiend an hour later on his word. Word bailable enough. Quoting telephonically when the family refused to open the gate that Sections 323 and 506 were insufficient for putting anyone behind bars—despite clear homicidal intentions. Even a night in the lock-up against ‘human rights’! Seriously?! One is further yawningly explained, as if it to the lame-brained, that to go to jail 7 years of Sections blah & blah were requisite! Then, as if again, dumbing down the reasons, the law-upholding police lifelessly spells out that ‘this’ was a family matter. File a complaint and it shall be transferred to the court and they will, in good time, take cognizance.
Questions: How does one measure the parameters of a 7-year sentence? Shards of a blood-hungry glass? And once murdered, the slayer, the ‘correct’ candidate to be put in jail after righteously performing the mother’s last rites? Lastly, howzitt that these upright cops turn a blind eye when the very same species run amok in cars laden with drugs and poor Russian escort girls? All about the money, honey?