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I had never thought life would remain so incomplete. What can I say about those moments when I and Geeta met each other, it was a very different experience of our lifetime. Before we got married, we had a great time together. Day or night we used to have lot of fun together. Our grandfather said ‘Stop laughing so much your teeth will come out.” On this statement we pulled his “Dhoti” and said “Your teeth have fallen. You are growing old and you are unable to laugh aloud and when we laugh you have a problem with that!”.

We were five very good friends, Geeta, Anju, Asha, Sunita and me Neelam. We did everything together. One day our class teacher asked us to learn a poem and none of us could learn it. All of us were turned out of the class and also were beaten with a stick on our palm. After that our teacher called us inside the classroom. She was our favourite teacher. I was the head monitor in the school and I liked to frighten the other students. I used to frighten the students who would not complete their tasks. It was fun looking at their scared faces. Then we teased those students by asking them how much punishment did they received?

The name of our school is “Madhya Vidyalay Chatro”. I, myself, was a resident of Chatro and our school was at a distance of 3km. I travelled to school by my cycle. Our school was till 8th standard only. We all were studying in 8th standard. It was January and our session was about to end. During this time mostly everyone used to go for a tour from their school, college or home. We were just discussing that when a few girls of standard 7th came and asked us “Didi can we also go for a trip”? Without thinking twice, we said “Yes why not”.

We all went to the Principal to seek his permission to allow us to go for a trip from the school but our head master refused. Later, we, all boys and girls of class 7th and 8th went to our favourite teacher and convinced her for the trip.  As it is said “Where there is will there is a way”.

We all went for a picnic from our school to Maithan. We were told that the food will be provided as well. Earlier we were all asked to carry food from home but now we were told that the food will be provided to us. We were all discussing and were very excited. All of a sudden, our favourite teacher came and asked ‘How did you like our idea”?

We were very surprised as there was “Kachori and Paneer Sabzi” as I and my friend Geeta are vegetarian whereas there was non-vegetarian food for everyone else. I was overwhelmed seeing our teacher’s special effort to arrange for vegetarian food for us. My teacher said “why, only you people know everything? We also know about your likes and dislikes”. We were surprised and very happy, this was the happiest moment our lives. Even today I am unable to forget that moment, neither could Geeta.

Geeta was the daughter-in law of my uncle (Chachaji) in my in-law’s house, she was also my friend. Whenever we got some spare time, we would relish the memories of our childhood. On the other hand, our mother- in- law constantly yelled at us and said “If you are done with your gossip you could concentrate towards taking care of the kitchen as well”. While we were talking Geeta’s husband came back and asked for food, we had to put a stop to our ‘walk down the memory lane’ and left for our own houses.

We both completed our studies with great difficulty. I, with lot of hardships, completed my 10th standard. I had my mother. After my father’s death my mother worked in a factory to run the entire household. To get rid of her responsibilities she married me off at a very young age. I have three more sisters younger to me who are unmarried and they stay with my mother. I did not have the money to complete my studies. So, every morning I went into the jungle near our village and collected Datuvan of Sakhua and its leaves and sold them to complete my studies. At that moment I blamed my caste for this. Later I realised the problem was not my caste it’s the thought process of the people which is the problem. I was a person with positive thinking. My sisters also did the same work to pursue their studies and took care of their own needs as well.

I am from Ravidas caste. Dalits are still discriminated against by the people in our society. Dalits in our society are discriminated and hated by not only people of other caste but when people from our community get the taste of being rich they start behaving differently and badly with those who are poor in the same circle. Whenever I went to sell my Datuvan and the leaves and if the customer got to know about my caste they would refuse to buy, and won’t even look at me.

When I got married, I had to face a lot of ill words from my family, due to my dark complexion, and my husband Rakesh would beat me as well. My husband Rakesh is a Para-teacher, and yet he has such mind set. I despise him thinking with such ideology what teachings would he be giving to his students? My mother-in-law would not spare me with one single minute in relief. I had my in-laws living with me in the same house, uncle, aunt, (Chacha, Chachi) their children and my brother-in-laws. My husband was the eldest. I had one sister-in-law. Being the eldest, Rakesh has to take care of all the expenses as his uncle is disabled and is unable to work. So, he bears the expenses of the education of his cousins also. Salary of para teacher is so little that it’s very difficult to manage the entire household with that.

Rakesh has a friend who is very close to him and he often visited our place after our marriage. One day Rakesh asked me to cook some good food and told me not to step out of the house. When the friend arrived the first question he asked was “Where is my sister-in-law (Bhabiji)? I haven’t met her yet”. Rakesh said that I was not at home. I was very sad listening to what he said to his friend. I blamed my dark complexion for all the sadness in my life. Seeing me sad Rakesh’s sister, said “Everything will be alright one day and you should not lose hope”. 

When Corona Virus started spreading like a catastrophe, lockdown was declared and also the schools were closed down. People were asked not to step out of the house unless it was very necessary. Rakesh also started to stay at home, because of which our differences increased. When he entered the room, I had to leave and when I entered, he left the room, those moments of my life were very hard and scary.

I could not bear the humiliation that I was suffering for last 4 years and one day the feminist inside me woke up. I decided to talk to Rakesh about the violence I was suffering. I asked him to stop humiliating me. As I am an educated woman, I could understand the situation. At first, I thought the lockdown and the difficult circumstances in the house, is the cause of such violence. I was giving enough chances to Rakesh to mend his ways. I thought that it has not been very long he had lost his father and maybe he is under a lot of pressure of fulfilling his responsibilities. I thought of giving him some time to understand me, but he has been constantly abusive. He stayed irritated even because of my height. My height is less but I am not short. I thought, if even after 4 years he failed to understand me then why should I live with him any longer. I decided not to face any more humiliation because of my height and my complexion.

At the same time a woman in the neighbourhood was also facing the same violence and humiliation in her in-laws house and then I decided to raise my voice as I realised I am not the only one who is being the victim, there are others also. I asked her to raise her voice as well and  we both did the same and got success in our fight.

When I was leaving my in-laws house, Rakesh realised his mistake. He apologised to me and asked me not to leave him. I forgave him as I didn’t want to break my relationship. Today we both are happy together. He even helped me enrol myself in a college so that I can complete my higher studies. Now during the lockdown, both of us are distributing groceries and mask to people in our village. We both are giving information to people in our village about corona virus and helping others as much as possible. The differences among us has been resolved and now we are living happily together. I have waited for this moment for very long and now I want to share my happiness with Geeta.

Written by Neelam (18), Giridih, Jharkhand

This article is part of an Livelihood Action Project of FAT with young girls from Bihar and

Jharkhand to enable them to become professional story writers. The training for story writting was done by Purwa Bharadwaj, and she edited and finalised the story in Hindi. The English translation of this story was done by an intern from TISS, Aqsa and final edits by Meetu Kapoor.