An abuse of any kind…
By: Sonia Handa
Tags: Abuse, Metoo, Sexual Abus, Marital Rape, Divorce

They show you the stars…

and your eyes light up

and then ………

Growing up in Kuwait, ‘Nausheen’ (name changed) was my neighbor and one of my best friends. She was one of 8 or 9 children (I forget!) at that time. We had been together since we were in kindergarten. Nausheen was the oldest at 16 and the youngest was a baby. There was always a baby. They were Muslims from south of India and I was a Hindu from the north. Our families were poles apart. I was perpetually at their house all the time. We ate together, studied together, played together. My parents were educated modern Hindus and never stopped me. I was basically like one of the children. I learned to speak their language and some of the verses of the Koran. Nausheen was very intelligent, topped in all the classes and very docile. We were inseparable. We were in the same classes , went to school together, shared teenage secrets.

Like her, I used to call her mother, ‘amma’. To me it was a fun house. Ten people living in a 3-room apartment! Amma used to literally have a child every other year. I just remember her being pregnant all the time. She was a plain, frail, petite little thing always in a nightgown and lips stained red from chewing paan(beetle leaves). Their house was always warm, full of chatter and food and kids of all ages and sizes everywhere doing something or the other. All the children were brilliant. Their father was a quiet, unprepossessing, pious man. Swarthy complexion , always in a pristine white robe, an Islamic skull cap and rosary beads running between his fingers. Although I knew their father was very autocratic, I never personally saw any abuse. I always left when their father came home from work.

One night, when I was about 14 years old, I heard loud wailings coming from outside our front door. We lived in one of the umpteen, ubiquitous buildings prevalent in Kuwait. Ours had 3 apartments on every floor. It was around midnight.

It was the most heart wrenching sounds I had ever heard, like it was coming from an injured animal. I can still hear it even after 35 years! I ran to see what was going on and looked through the keyhole. I saw Nausheen’s mother huddled in a fetal position on the floor and heaving and crying. I opened the door and ran to her and wrapped my arms around her. I didn’t understand what was happening. The other neighbors also opened their doors and collected to see what was going on and as soon as they saw her, they apparently figured it out and started to move away. My mother came out and saw me with amma in my arms and immediately understood and asked me to come inside. I refused and banged on Nausheen’s door asking her to come out. Nausheen opened the door with tears in her eyes, refusing to look me in the eye. I looked at her incredulously and told her that amma was sick and on the floor crying and asked her to take her mother in or to the hospital. I thought she didn’t know. All the other children were up and standing solemnly. Her father came out the door and stood at the doorway with his arms stretched refusing entry and standing smug. It was then I realized that he had been beating her and then threw her out. I was livid. I could not believe it. Living in the middle east I had heard about Arab men beating their women, and here was a monster right next door and I never knew! My mother tried to pull me away. She later said I look like a little tigress, panting, with my eyes red . I yelled at him that I would call the police. The other neighbors just walked away with their heads bowed.. The father just stared at me literally laughing at my threat. Somehow, I managed to pick amma up and shove her in their house. Nausheen helped. I went back to my house and did not get over it for a very long time.

I never went back to their house again. I never spoke to Nausheen or any of the other children or amma ever again. I couldn’t believe that this was a routine ritual for them and they allowed it.

Years and years later, when I lay crying, huddled on my bed late one night in a similar fetal position, I finally understood. The modern, educated me finally got it. She must have refused sex. There were so many children around, she may have wanted respite or privacy . But who can quell the lust and ire of the man…..

Years and years and years later, my youngest daughter told me how when she was little, she could hear me through the bathroom door, crying as he yelled, regurgitating abusive expletives. How she would dig her nails in her arms wondering why was her mother so weak and why she couldn’t stand up to herself and how she could help me.

Amma gave in as we all do……

She went back in…….as we all do

The children kept quiet….as they all do.

And when it came to me, the tigress in me was just a weak nidget…..as we all are.

It was almost 35 years later after I left my own abusive marriage, when I joined Facebook that I found Nausheen and we ‘friended’ each other. She is actually the principal of a school now! Funnily enough, I saw her give a heartfelt eulogy to her father on her Facebook…..

……and I felt nothing.

Sonia Handa