Emotional Violence

It seems I am a kind of nagger when I remember the harsh behavior I had faced during my time in Bal Mandir. They used to use very demeaning words to scold us, respect was the unheard word and dignity ? what it is which birds name it was ? They took pride in degrading us using derogatory language most of the time. even the calling was not so good experience and tell me tell you even the children used to use almost the same tone to each other not just adults. At times it was as close as treating like dogs. No, No not the dog owners who treated them with respect like the PETA members. When I look back and try to understand, sometimes, I think maybe I am just too sensitive or touchy to feel that way but the harsh truth cant be changed just because it was painful for us to experience it like that.

In recent years, I started watching some crime shows, to study human behavior and to understand why some people behave the way they do and why do they commit crime ? Most of the crimes takes place in family members and the victim are dear ones. When police try to connect all the dots during investigation it reveals that some crime was the result of   emotional violence which they face years and one day it burst up in such a way that it sheds blood like anything. It shocks the town and then is the time when people stops believing even in the blood relationship.

Recently, I was watching the webbed a program that comes in MTV there was a brother who stole the girlfriends of his younger brother for very short time; so that he can hurt him. Instead he wanted to hurt his father but to him if he hurts his brother it will indirectly hurt his father who was dotted in his younger son compared to his older one. The oldest one thought he had tormented his life when he was young. His father had kept his brother with him but sent him to the boarding school because in his own word his father wanted him to fulfill his ‘second hand dream’ which he never wanted to live.

With his one act he broke the heart of his younger brother, the girl got killed when they took the wrong medicine from the internet to abort the pregnancy that was caused by the older brother. All this brother wanted to do was to take a revenge with his father and not even his younger brother. This shows the  dark side of inferiority complex which the oldest brother had been living for so long. At this moment, I must tell you that the youngest brother was loved and liked by his father and was much successful in his career than his oldest brother.

In our society its also called act of jealousy. But the root of it has in home and the father had cultivated that in the young mind ever since he was very young. And the result was very scary and an innocent girl had to sacrifice her life.

It is natural not everyone is equally bright and smart and not all can't do good like their siblings and then they suffer long or commit suicide due to excessive comparing; or live life under the shadow of his/her bright and smart sibling, which again is not good for anyone who is not smart enough for the world. The movie Tare Jamin Par sheds some light on this matter how parents discriminates among their own child and how it impart on the young mind; especially when they don't know how to say it. We need to do something on this matter rather than saying he is so jealous or envious of his.

Last year, I saw one more such real life crime case which shook my soul and made me ponder why some young people commits crime ?  In a remote village of India there was a girl of 16 years, who fell in love with a guy who were not from her own caste. The villager were against it and worse than that, her own family members were against it. She belonged to a very small town where the thinking pattern of the people were even narrower than the town itself. To keep her away from the boy, her parents  sent her to the other town to stay with her relatives; presuming out of sight and out of mind would work on this matter. But she was young and the boy was not out of mind, indeed it works as reverse psychology. More she was told to stay away from him, more she wanted to be with him. What is even more hard to swallow that she was not trusted to go out from her new place even to take a fresh breath of air and she was given her meal in her room which was locked when no one was around.

Having been grown up in Bal Mandir my personal experience says that, if you treat people like an animal, they will surprise you acting like one. This is a human tendency. So, one day she felt she must escape from the caged life. But she was locked in her room and the key of the outside gate was with the relative of her - aunt - who was alone at that time. Her uncle and cousin had gone out of home for for about a couple of days. She had to do something to got out and take the key. It so happened that in her desperation and anger she ended up killing her.

See, I am not trying to justify her criminal behavior but it was because of emotional violence she had to face for so long and ultimately one day she turned out to be the criminal at the young age of 16. Why because she was in love and wanted to be her boyfriend for the rest of her life and which was denied. Can we blame it entirely to her for the tragic ending of a live and her own life ending up in jail ?

There was another girl who committed suicide [again in India ] because she could not meet the expectation of her fathers demand to bring 98% in her final school exam. Do not presume she was a bad student, she was third in her class and her passing percentage was 89% but her father wanted it to be 98%. When the final exam came closer she felt the tremendous pressure and realized that she cannot make it even if she put all her might and knowledge so one day she took a bottle of poison and emptied it on her mouth. Before they   rushed her to the hospital she was dead.  When police wanted to file the case or give them clean chit, even then the father was in denial that he had anything to do in her death because he stressed that all he wanted was best for her daughter and good marks meant good education for her and good life. But what education if she had no life at all ? But the sad news is that the father will live on guilt all his life whether he admits it or not.

I know one thing for sure I am lucky in this matter, I was not raised in family and  the one who brought me up did not expected anything from me to be this or that in my life so there was no pressure me[us] to that extent that broke me like that. Oh  yes, they were paranoid about having a boyfriend and getting close with them. It really took me long time to understand that I was not that much violated to that extent in Bal Mandir during my childhood. Had I not seen those Indian shows and movies and real crime cases I would never ever have understood my own condition or be thankful to the condition that was a gift in disguise.  Emotional violence do have power to impact people for long time to come and the result at times is bit scary than we think it may bring.