Foreword
“To boldly go where no man has gone before” says the iconic Captain’s Oath in the Star Trek series. Humanity seeks to live adventures, either by conquering mountains or the seas, or by watching war movies, space adventures, fantasies and thrillers. But often the greatest adventure of them all is to negotiate through a lifetime.
Don’t you just hate survivor stories? They make me feel guilty for not having endured enough.
This is one such story, of a young mother with kids charting her path through the landmine riddled terrain of Indian society for divorced women. I can’t tell the story; it is not mine to tell. Shyamoli Verma’s or rather Shyamoli Gopal can tell it better. Her story is about the strength of ordinary people.
It is fiction … though it could be true, the story of a human being, imperfect and flawed, who tries to do her best in the circumstances she finds herself. Now, I’ll let Shyamoli tell her story
PART ONE
People often equate divorce with failure. No one wants to admit to failure, but sometimes it is inevitable. The alternative is a far worse option.
There are certain days in life that beg a person to slow down and reflect. Milestones, you may call them. The day I got divorced was one such day. I had fought the case for seven years, give or take a few months. A long and grim battle, or was it war? Divorces are wars that do grievous harm to self esteem, security, love. Collateral damage is family, friends and everyone who is forced to choose between one spouse and the other.
Friends are the first to go, some because they prefer your spouse to you and others because they don’t want to pick sides. It is the easiest loss to bear. It is the first blow, as though preparing you for worse. The impact hits your finances next. From a two income family you’re reduced to one income. Credit cards go, and you’re reduced to tight budgets. While you are adapting, you find out that you’ve become an object of curiosity. People spend afternoons discussing you over cups of steaming tea and snacks. And instead of being supportive, your family often wishes you had not subjected them to the ignominy of it all. The attitude is, “We spent a lot of money putting on a huge show for your marriage, gave you a good dowry. Now damn it, stay married!”
There are many grim battles that are fought every day. I admire cancer survivors, they should write a memoir, and it helps to come to terms with the journey. I once met a maimed soldier back from war. He returned home to find that even his own family did not find him whole and worth loving. He was a soldier and did not have the words to express what he felt, but his eyes spoke, they were eloquent.
In countries which are far more invested in individuals and in women, there are support groups for single women with children. There are posters which say ‘Single Moms Rock.’ In our country, parents don’t bat an eyelid when they tell neighbours that their daughter has returned home with kids because her husband has got a job in the middle-east, even if he has moved to another town. Yes, I am bitter and my bitterness is justified.
My husband, Manav lived in the same town as me. An investment banker with a multi-national firm, he could have supported our two children, but did not. He said that the person who keeps the children should bear the costs. It is one of blows I took on my chin. But this book is not about him.
It is about me and my struggle to keep my family together. Vanity? Yes, but not too much I hope. I am not pompous. I wonder what would have happened if I had not found that photo of Nimmi and Manav sharing a coffee in the lining of his jacket. Men fall in love with the strangest things. That leather jacket was in tatters, its lining ripped and the seam around the shoulders did not hold. Manav loved it, it reminded him of his college days when he lived in it.
