Tom gets all of his ironing done by the ironwallah who works in a little room in the parking lot downstairs. The ironwallah (a person who does some chore or whatever is a "wallah", like the tea guy is a "chaiwallah", the guy who irons clothes is an "ironwallah", etc.) always puts pages of the newspaper in Tom's shirts and this morning this particular piece of newspaper caught my eye. Below is the article:
Marital discord drives three women to suicide
Chennai: Marital discord is suspected to have prompted three women, all under 30 years of age, to commit suicide in separate incidents in the city suburbs.
Poornima (24), who was five months pregnant and married to Kubendran for the last five years, resorted to self-immolation as she was unable to bear the alleged torture of her in-laws for more dowry. Her brother Anbazhagan was informed of her death when he went to visit her on Tuesday. A case was registered against Vasuki, mother-in-law of the deceased, and her daughters Meenakshi and Rukmani, based on a complaint lodged by Pushpa, Poornima's mother, at Sathankadu police station.
In another incident at Kolathur on Tuesday, Lakshmi (28), committed suicide by hanging after a quarrel with her husband Jaishankar. The couple reportedly disagreed about a visit to the village festival in Lakshmi's native place.
In an incident at Nehru Colony in Pazhavanthangal on Monday, Rita (23) committed suicide by hanging at her parents' house . According to a complaint lodged by her father Vijayakumar, Rita was married to Udayakumar for the last two and a half years and the couple had a child. She resorted to the extreme step on Monday after her husband paid her a visit.
For some reason this article really disturbed me and resulted in a conversation with Tom where he told me that this kind of thing is so common in India and that in all cases the deaths are ruled a suicide without any investigation by the police as to what may have really happened. Even though complaints were "lodged" against the in-laws, no investigation will take place and the matter will just be forgotten. I can't even imagine living in a place where my only option out of a marriage is suicide.
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That is so incredibly sad! You KNOW there has to be something behind all of these so-called "suicides"! Who kills themselves when they're pregnant?? Family means everything in their culture!
ReplyDeleteLike you, I find this very disturbing. I'm Not shocked, just disturbed. I don't think that we fully grasp what the lives of women are like in some other countries.
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