Women’s Web is saying Goodbye! Please make sure you read this important notification.
She hid the money and gave it to her daughter-in-law. She loved her son more but she knew her daughter-in-law deserved it more!
Trigger warning: This post contains mentions incidents of domestic abuse which may be triggering to survivors.
As she was kneading the dough Her mother in law pulled her hair Don’t make the dough too tight, If it wasn’t for the dowry She muttered under her breath
The sisters-in-law tittered And dough became black Ma where did you get this kali kaluti from Said the sisters-in-law.
She made the dough into small balls, And continued making rotis As she tasted the salted water on her lips
She had won a scholarship in class six She knew all her tables so well But she got married when she was in the eighth class She was kali, not Uma
Kali shorn of all power but with her colour She hid four rotis in the saltbox She was always hungry
Maa had told her never come back Stay in your sasural The thoughts were jumbled in her mind
As she clenched her muscles He looked at her Kali he said And continued It was over Kali he said and spat.
In the hospital room Old and cancer-ridden Her son held her gnarled hand And she saw he had tattooed her name on his arm And she felt the salt on her lips again.
She was sixteen, Round and fat, With laughter that would boom In the whole house.
And then came the partition She was married to a Fifty-year-old, To protect her, her mother said Protect her or to revile her no one knew,
Six kids later When she was forty He died.
She was still round and fat With gusty laughter, She always looked for validation, Lying on her death bed she giggled,
The shopkeeper next door said My eyes are very nasheeli. Are they she asked You are beautiful I told her, Did your husband never tell you that?
She sighed, I don’t remember, I just remember he was old And used to hit me every day He thought I was making eyes at the next-door neighbour.
Were you I asked, Yes that was the only rainbow In my life She died an hour later.
Lali Malik loved her son Her only child No one was like him
If he drank too much It was fine If he misbehaved with his wife It was fine
And then partition happened Lali Malik got 7000 rupees From the government For the haveli she left behind,
She hid the money , And gave it to her daughter-in-law She loved her son more, But she knew her Daughter in law was needier And much more deserving.
Picture credits: Still from TVF’s web series Yeh Meri Family
read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
Dear Women’s Web Community Member,
You may have wondered at our being on the quieter side during the last couple of months. Thank you for your patience, and we wanted to come back to you with a detailed note on what’s been happening at our end of things.
When we first began Women’s Web, as a blog from one woman’s desk along with a few like-minded souls, little could we have imagined the heights that it would soar to. Over the years, Women’s Web has published over 20000 stories (almost all by women), empowered countless women with the ideas, community and resources to chase their dreams, employed hundreds of women in core and project-based roles, and in the process, emerged as the OG women’s community in India. It has also inspired many others to build communities of a similar nature, all enabling women (and other-underrepresented groups) in their own ways.
Please enter your email address