"Diplomat transferred from Britain after wife beating charges"
Senior London-based diplomat Anil Verma, accused of assaulting his wife, has been transferred back home with immediate effect and is likely to face action.
Verma, a 1986-batch IAS officer of the West Bengal cadre and third-ranked diplomat in the Indian High Commission, found himself in trouble when his wife covered in blood was found screaming by neighbours on December 11.
When the police arrived, 45-year-old Verma, Minister (Economic) in the Indian mission, claimed diplomatic immunity and escaped action.........
This piece of news which has been doing the rounds ,I am sure, must have had far less readers than the reviews of Aamir's wife's maiden venture"Dhobi Ghaat"or the worst and best dressed actresses in the Golden Globe awards function .Not that the news went totally unnoticed.Some of us read it,thought about it before moving to the next news and even remembered to talk about it in our get-togethers.The most frequent comment that most of us blurted out was,
"These things happen among the educated and the upper class of the society too!".....as if we didn't know that.Didn't we know that many among us still don't wear anything other than saris or salwar kameez only because the husband doesn't want too?Many of our friends can't even think of calling their parents more than once a week(as fixed by the husbands)while his parents stay with him thus leaving him with no need to call them up to talk.Though it may sound strange,many women still have to ask for permission to go out to do errands,leave alone for their own entertainment like shopping and visiting friends.
It is not only our uneducated maids who are facing the brunt of male domination but also many of their "educated"employers who can't even think of taking up a job until her husband or his parents agree.The irony is that the maid can turn to the employer or police for help but not so in the case of the dominated educated woman.Who will she turn to?The society won't believe her seeing her jewllery and costly outfits,relatives and friends would think that a man who takes her for vacations twice a year and who is such a good father cannot be the reason for his wife's tormentation and her inner self will keep on trying to find 101 reasons why life would be worse without a man.Hence the domination and the suffering continues with flowers ,anniversary gifts and birthday surprises thrown in .....
We have been taught since childhood that "adjustment "is a virtue.,but is it so only in the case of a woman?Why does she have to adjust herself to be the first one to wake up and the last to sleep so that the family functions smoothly whereas the husband cannot adjust to eat a cold dinner even for a day?Well,here I have to mention that there are many lucky ones like me(touchwood!)who don't have to do with these "adjustments" .But our numbers are still few.Why does it always take woman to bleed till her bruises(emotional and physical)are seen?When is it "too much"?Only when he hits you and the world sees?If the beatings and abuses are behind the doors ,aren't they enough to cry out loud?If there are kids involved ,then should the tormentations be allowed to continue for their sake?How much is too much?Only if we had the answer...........
