It's the girl's fault, as always!

I was seven years old when I heard the word 'Suryanelli' for the first time. It was splashed in all newspapers and the television, and I used to hear this word frequently from my dad’s conversations with his friends. Out of my never-ending curiosity I asked my mom, “Amma, What is this Sooryanelli case?” I don’t know what was going through my mom’s mind. She might have thought that I was too small to know about that, she might have worried about the answers she has to give me for my further questions.

Sixteen years after that conversation, in 2012, I got to visit her. For the world she was Suryanelli Girl. Though she is in her mid-30s now, the world still calls her Suryanelli Girl...

When I called her dad and lawyer, they asked me to be at her home by 10 am. I was overly punctual and was there by 8:30am. When I called her dad, a man in his late 60s, he asked me to come in. I was welcomed by her mom. They spoke to me about the pain and torture they were undergoing for the past 16 years, about the day which changed their life forever, about the sordid, hypocritical society of Kerala, how their family members and the society in general alienated them, how the authorities who should have protected her rights as a woman and as an individual threw her into the depths of betrayal, how their lives were shattered forever….

They were a happy family. Her HH  father was a central government employee and mother was a nurse. They had two daughters. She was the youngest, and compared to other kids of her age she required special attention and care. Her parents also wanted to give her the best education. She was admitted to a convent school far from her home and was put up in the school hostel. Though she was 14 years old then, she was not mature enough for a girl of her age. Every weekend she came from school hostel to her home in a local bus. Her dad picked her up from the bus stop. Owing to her frequent bus journeys, she became friendly with the bus cleaner. One day, she was showing her photographs to her friend, in the same bus, when Raju came and snatched away the photograph from her. When she asked him to give it back to her, he said that he will return it to her. But things took a turn here; Raju started threatening her after this. He asked her to go with him. When she refused, he threatened her again by saying he will morph her photographs and will stick it on the walls of her dad’s office.

That weekend, she was not found on the bus she usually takes. Frightened parents ran from pillar to post in search of her. Raju took her in another bus and got down before the fixed destination without her noticing. And that was the first scene of a well-plotted script.

When she got down at the destination told by Raju, she found him missing. Confused and frightened, she decided to go to her uncle’s place. Enter  Usha, as per the script.  She promises to take her to uncle’s place and while they were about to start, Dharmarajan, the kingpin, entered the scene. He takes up the responsibility from Usha and assures to take her to her destination. Instead, she was taken to a lodge, where she was raped by him. That was the beginning of her never-ending torturous days.

She was passed on from one place to another, first to one person then to another. She was brutally raped by the most common to the most (so called) sophisticated members of this society to which you and I belong. When she refused to obey, she was beaten up. Some forcefully made her drink alcohol. 

After 21 days, she was send home with the bus fare and a pounded, wounded body and heart. She was first taken to the police station and then to the hospital. A case was filed later on.

Here began the fight of a family against a hypocritical society and its big shots. They were never ready to give up; they couldn't really just give up. The family started getting calls from prominent leaders and assorted people. Some threatened them, some begged them, and some offered them huge amounts of money. The family didn’t succumb to any of these pressures.
They were ostracised from the society. Her father was not even intimated about his mother and brother's death. They were kept away from all family functions. There were times when people would come till the verandah of their house in Suryanelli and ring the bell, just to see ‘the Suryanelli girl’.

Once the trial began the kind of questions she faced from the lawyer of the accused were deplorable. When the accused understood that there is no point threatening her and her family, they started spouting allegations against her, even saying that she was a child prostitute. That she went with Dharmarajan with the consent of her parents – it went on and on. The family still chose to fight. They were forced to leave their place for the sake of peace of mind that anonymity could bring them. The state government headed by E K Nayanar provided her job as a peon in the Kerala Sales Tax Department

While I was sipping the tea she served me, her dad continued.

“See, we both are in our 

late 60s, a time when we should be sitting back and playing with our grandchildren. My eldest daughter is not married yet. Can you imagine a life where you have nobody to communicate to, nobody to share your grief with, and nobody to support you mentally? Can you imagine of not attending your own mother’s funeral? Do you understand the pain when we are not informed about any of the functions happening in our own family, when we are being detested for something we are not responsible for? Can you imagine how it is when a good majority of our world propagates that my own daughter is a prostitute and that we were supporting her because we were money-minded? If money was what we wanted, our lives wouldn't have been like this. We could have taken up the umpteen offers that came our way. We've spend our entire life's savings on this case. We are not able to go out; our lives are confined in these four walls. Yet, we are still battling the case. I won’t allow any of them leave Scott-free. I am not ashamed to say that I am ‘the Suryanelli girl’s' father. We didn’t back off from our statement or decisions.  We did what we should have done. Life during these 16 years was not easy, but we didn’t commit suicide”.

While taking my leave, I searched for some words to console them, but came up empty. Tears choked me, and I somehow managed a weak goodbye.While I was about to get inside my cab, a decent-looking man came to me and asked me the purpose of my visit. When I told him that I am a journalist, he said, "Madam, don't you have any other work? That girl was a prostitute, and they did everything for money only."

I gave him a sharp look, but I don't think he even noticed. While travelling back, there was only one question I kept asking myself... When will we stop victimising the victims? It's a funny world we live in.What kind of people are we? What if it was your daughter or sister? Or what if you were the girl? Why is the girl's chastity and virtue in question, and why are the wolves who bit her off her dreams and a normal happy life still prowling as if nothing happened? It’s a funny world we live in. Will you shut up when the next “Suryanelli girl” is your beloved?

Just another wedding-haunted girl

 

Now I am facing the same problem that any girl of my age has to face. These days, all the conversations I have with my Mom end up in just one topic…. Marriage. I tell her, ‘Amma I feel like travelling a bit', to which comes her instant reply, 'Get married and go'. ‘Amma I want to get a new two wheeler’ - ‘Get married and ask your husband. He will gift you one’. Even if I tell my mom that I feel like eating something spicy, ‘GET MARRIED!’ will be her answer. So these days I’ve stopped the citation of my wish list to dear Mom. Unlike other typical Malayali moms, my mom is a person who is kind of okay with my male friends and my hanging out with them. She has given me enough freedom that a girl craves for. So ultimately I don’t want her hurt over a trivial (for me) issue like marriage. My mom is okay with me taking a 2-3 years more to get married. But relatives continue to be her real issue. So there are these aunties who ask her, ‘your daughter is 25 now, why isn’t she married?” or “is she dating somebody of some other caste/religion?” (This, a snide pull on the photographs of male friends and colleagues in my Facebook account) and then, there are some aunties who think that I may have some serious illness (can be physical or psychological). Some think I may be lesbian. And according to the research results of some brilliant relatives of mine, my weight and hair length are the only reasons why my marriage is getting delayed (I am not 100kg or something - I am 61kg and I can tie a pretty decent pony tail with my hair).

 
And there are some who quote the gold price rise, high infertility rate and the difficulty to find a groom for a brat like me. So in order to satisfy the cribbing of these folk of hers, my mom wants me indulge in some official bride-seeing ceremonies. So during my weekends, I have to shuttle between my current city and my home town. From Saturday morning till Sunday evening there will be a flow (bit exaggerated) of grooms and their assorted folks to my home.

 
An encounter with the groom will begin when I, clad in a sari or a very conservative salwar (Western outfits are strictly prohibited), appear in front of them with a tray full of coffee or tea cups or some soft drinks, accompanied by mom or sister with another tray full of confectioneries. I throw a smile (a narrow one) at all present, and stand there for 5 minutes (within this time the ones present would have scanned me and would have measured by height, weight, the length of my hair, etc).. Then I dutifully walk back in to the kitchen like I have no say in the proceedings to the first step of my marriage. In another 10-15 minutes Dad comes in and tells me that he will send in the guy, so that both of us can have a private conversation. I nod my head like the most obedient daughter ever born.

Once the guy is inside the room, there begins the interview session. Most of the questions are very simple, like my name (though they know it, they want to hear it from my mouth), current job, nature of job, my future plans and so on…. I also repeat the same questions to them. After a 10-minute interview session, the guy goes back to his old seat outside near his mommy and in another 5 minutes they leave with a copy of my horoscope (My dad has a separate file for the Photostat copies of my horoscope). In an average weekend, I attend at least 4 sessions like this.

In a few hours arrive the phone calls of my mom’s well-wishers. They want to know how the groom looked, how his mom looked, their car model, my attire, my attitude – it goes on and on and on.

Of late I’ve stopped attending all the functions that happens in my family, be it marriage, death, birthday, engagement, anything. It is not because I don’t want to attend any of these, but because I have to face the same question from all the aunts and uncles present – ‘When are you going to get married?

 

To all aunties, uncles, and well-wishers of mine and my parents:

 I clearly know that according to the societal rules in Kerala, it’s high time that I got married. Yeah I am 25 and still single. It is not because I have a boyfriend, it is not because I am a journalist, it is not because I’m overweight, and my hair length has nothing to do with my marriage. Marriage is not a child’s play. It requires a certain amount of maturity. Once I enter the institution of marriage, I will be forced to handle a lot of things apart from my own problems and internal conflicts. I will have to handle my partner, his family, my family, his friends, my friends. I am at a stage where I cannot even properly handle myself, so asking me to take up this entire burden is seriously not fair. Once I’m sure about all these things, I will surely get married, and trust me, it won’t take more than 5 years. Therefore until then, PEACE OUT.

Lost in the city?

Life in a metro is not easy as I thought it would be. It is not the internal conflicts, job pressure and your relationships alone that you have to handle - apart from that you have to handle the never ending dirty looks, innuendo comments and much more. You wear a salwar, sari, t-shirt or anything else for that matter, the very looks fall on your breasts are unbearable. On several occasions, I have asked a couple of my male friends this question, "what is so particular about a woman’s breast?". Some just smile, some ignore me and others just stare at me. By far I have not got an answer for this.



Being a journalist, I usually don't leave office at a scheduled time. It is at those times that I have to resort to a city bus to take me home. Once inside a bus, the umpteen pair of eyes that wait to devour you make you feel like an alien who has just landed in a foreign world. On rarer occasions, I am forced to depend on auto rikshaw to return home. These rides are particularly scary - leaving the ugly looks aside, the exorbitant fares that they tend to blurt out is good enough to send you right into a coma. Catching a late show with a male friend or a group of friends is literally sacrilege and you would think that I was walking around with some kind of ammunition the way I get stared at. One of these days I seriously consider walking around with a banner that reads "Welcome to the 21st century", for all those  RipVan Winkles.

                                                        

PC: Jose

A mouthwatering sardine legacy

 Ethnic tastes of Kerala are best tried out in the rustic villages where the flavors and spices are not marred by chemically enhanced additions. The ever spicy Kerala fish recipes garner more followers by the day. Tucked away in a corner of Kochi is the island of Gothuruthu where sardines retain the ethnic flavors that makes the Kerala fish recipe popular

Approximately 24 km away from Kochi, Gothuruthu is an island in the Periyar River that boasts of a history dating 600 years back. Methodical studies state that this island was formed as a result of a flood in the early 14th century. Gothuruthu is set at a place where there was once an ancient port city called Muziris . It is believed that the name of the island came from the Portuguese name of the island San Diego.  

Every year lot of celebrations and cultural programmes takes place here and it is part of the life of inhabitants here. Owing to this, the island is known as the 'Island of Festivals'. Gothuruthu was ruled by the lone Christian royal family in India, called Villarvattam. The island has plenty of legacies related to culture, tradition, lifestyle and cuisine of the past through the people who live here today. Sardine is one of the most common fish found in the coast of Gothuruthu. Found in large numbers, it is a popular variety in the local cuisine. I was always under the impression that you couldn’t prepare more than ten dishes from sardines but my belief was shattered the day I met Rosamma Chedathy(local name for sister).  Rosamma Chedathy can quite easily prepare 20 dishes with sardines that include cutlet, pepper sardine, stew, and fry or even roasted. Due to time constraints we got the opportunity to try out just five dishes. 

A one hour bus journey from Kochi takes you to Gothurthu and from there; a ten minute walk takes you to Rosamma’s house. A humble and down to earth woman with a gift of creating heaven through your plates, she is the representative of a generation that is ready to share the secret recipes of the Gothurthu cuisines. 

Her passion for the craft is evident when she declares that cooking is an art. The confident tone with which she seems to declare that she is one amongst the artists of cooking, her statement turned out to be more than confidence as I tried out the magic she created by preparing five sardine dishes with absolutely no qualms within a an hour and that too artistically. A sardine stew, crispy sardine cutlet, spicy boiled sardine, sardine fried in banana leaf, hot red sardine curry, she announced as she served the items one by one. Each of these goes well with traditional pancake. 

For her cooking is an ancestral treasure, something which has been passed on through her ancestors. When asked about the recipes, she doesn’t hesitate to share it with me. I convinced myself that I would return to explore more of her culinary wonders.

Clicks: JJ

Tissue Paper

I considered tissue papers as one of the cheapest things available today and it is one of the things I over use without thinking twice, until the day JJ and  I stepped into a restaurant for  lunch.

 So there is this restaurant where you  get good fish curry meals (JJ’s obsession and favorite), and because of that single reason I was forced to step in there (still am forced to do that). There is nothing wrong with the restaurant, it is moderately clean, and the waiters are receptive and cultured and of course you  get good fish curry meals there. The only problem (to me at least) I found with this place is that they consider tissue papers to be something really really precious. 

For example before or after your lunch, if you want to (it is not compulsory) wipe your hands. You have to take 4 seconds, which is the walking distance from your table to the counter. Stand before the accountant and in a very humble tone ask him this, “Chetta (brother), tissue” (remember humbleness is the key word here). He will look at you and mark grade for your humbleness and with much difficulty he will take a tissue from the drawer.  And if you need one more again have to double your humbleness and then ask, “Chetta, onu koode (one more). He will give you an expression as if you have asked him for a kidney of his. Don’t lose heart because it is your need. He might show you long face or sometimes he might ignore your request, but again don’t lose your heart. 

I can’t stop going to this restaurant because this is the only place near my office where you will get yummy fish curry meals at a very reasonable rate .
So these days what I started doing is I stopped asking for tissues, and stared carrying my own tissue papers or handkerchief to the restaurant. That is the tip I can give to all those who visit this place “Carry your own tissue papers, if you don’t want to get stared at.”

Click: JJ

A lost girl's guide to getting through a day at the in laws family function

Meet your boyfriend’s mom at his sister’s engagement function.  He will introduce you to her, throw a smile at her, just that and answer to the questions being asked, just that. His sister (with whom you have good rapport) will invite you to their place. Go there, but make sure that he is not there.  Also make sure that he is not gonna come back any time soon, because he is busy with his friends (who have come down just for the function and who have never met him for a long time).  Talk to his sister; make plans for the things to be done for the family dinner (before the marriage day).  Your future mother-in-law will be busy in the kitchen, cleaning and packing the remaining food along with a friend of hers.  Again throw a smile. Don’t dare to ask her ‘Aunty, need any help?’ nah… never.  Even if you realize that the work is too much of a burden for her. Just be seated on the sofa. Even after an hour of your arrival, she is reluctant to offer you a cup of coffee or tea.. Let it be.. Don’t ever feel bad. (You can have that from some chaay waalas down in the street or from some restaurant). Again pose a smile. And finally when you are about to leave she will ask you, whether you need  something for dinner and she will ask you whether anything should be packed. Just smile and say, “No aunty, I am on a diet". Spend another 10 minutes there and tell her, “Aunty I am leaving, See you on the marriage day." 

Now What I did

I went there saw my future mother-in-law , toiling  with house hold chores. I rendered a helping hand , which she readily accepted. She gave me a list of the things to be done. I who had vested interest, readily agreed to that list of hers. 

Result

After I am gone or may be after two or three days of my arrival, she spoke to future sis-in –law about me , declaring " that girl ..she was taking  too much freedom with us, see, she washed vessels she made coffee, she cleaned the kitchen, she wiped the table.. I didn't like her at all

Now you who is ignorant of all these things will go for the marriage. The bride’s place and groom’s place are in two different districts, you will have to stay at a hotel and make sure that you never talk to your boyfriend. If you are that desperate to talk to him.. Resort to the technologies available, What’s app, text messaging, Facebook.. and so on.  Even if you are aware that your future mother-in law ill-treats, again just pose a smile. If you want to, phone your boyfriend and torture him and say that am leaving. He, who is finding it hard to balance between girlfriend and mom, will either listen to all your complaints or will beg you to be at the function.  If you have a skin harder than that of a rhino, stay back, no matter, in whatever way your future mother-in law humiliates you. And on the wedding day, after getting ready don’t ever dare to visit your future sister-in-law, your mom-in-law will yell at you and will ask you to leave the room. If you have done that, and after getting yelled, just remember all those bahus in Star Plus. Don’t ever think who you are and why you came there. Just go to your room, cry and even after that you didn't get any relief, again call your boyfriend and cry over the phone. He will come rushing to your room, just hug him and cry. Again the poor thing will ask you to stay back. So for his being stay back and just ignore everybody, if you have a smart phone, then well and good, play games, browse and sit in his uncle’s car silently (make sure that you have a good rapport with his uncle and aunty). Attend the function. If you are lucky enough, there will be some other common friends of you both, who will come to attend the marriage function. Be with them. Don’t dare to go back. Just pack and run with them.

But the best thing you can do is not to attend your boyfriend’s sister’s marriage or re-think the relationship