Her Story

It’s a story of a young Muslim woman married to a Hindu after years of spending days together. The story began about a decade ago when the teenager fell in love with the boy of an affluent Hindu family of Calcutta. She, being only about 17/18, could not but be excited about her new-found love; little did she know then that it was the beginning of a long battle.

His family was so-called “progressive”, as she discovered after several visits to their Baguiati home. Her family, as Indian society sometime says, is rather “conservative”, as her parents were against the relationship since its inception. During the years of courtship, she never faced any problem from her boyfriend’s family. In fact, her eventual mother-in-law supported them in the troubled years when she almost waged a war against her family staying on the northern fringes of the City of Joy.

About four years ago, the young woman — an MSc in anthropology — tied the knot with the man of her life — a brilliant student from one of the prestigious IITs of the country. Soon after marriage, she was asked by her in-laws to change the religion of her birth. Obviously, the rebel in her did not budge. She left the “progressive” home of her in-laws to pursue BEd in Jadavpur University — seat of the 20th century Renaissance in Bengal.

There began another battle — now not against families, but society at large. First, the Muslim woman was literally thrown out of the hostel by the same group of girls who talk feminism, bring out magazines for women’s rights and take out rallies even for tortured housewives! With a suitcase and mattress, she knocked the door of one of the paying guest owners in the area, a posh south Calcutta address. “Sorry, we don’t allow Muslim woman to stay with us,” came the reply from the house-owner, rather owners, as the number was many.

We live in a free democratic secular society — of which Calcutta and Jadavpur University are known to be its citadels!

At last she — her husband was then away posted in a company outside Bengal — cleared her one-year BEd course from one of her generous friend’s houses. At present, she is in a West Midnapore railway town with her husband. The government school where she is now a teacher, is not that “progressive” like its Calcutta counterparts, but the school at least has not made her life “hell”.

Let Id brings joy to her family and the newcomer she is carrying now.
©Supratim Pal