“My maid is not coming to work since our area is under containment zone. On the first of this month, I’d called her to ask when she’d be coming to take her salary. She did not answer my phone. I called her again in the evening and she didn’t answer again neither did she call me back. I don’t know why but I started to get worried about her,” wrote Mrs Kavitha Iyer from Bangalore.  

She further wrote how her maid was being abused by her husband and how earlier also she had tried to help her. “Sunitha, my maid, is just a 23-year-old woman who already has two kids of 4 and 5 age and her husband works as a housekeeper in an office. Last month, before the lockdown started, she’d mentioned how her husband was angry with her because one house had refused her services fearing infection...this was at the onset of COVID.

He, as  is,  used to beat her up for random reasons, especially after getting drunk, but this time since she could not bring in as much money as she used to earlier, he beat her with sticks, kicked her repeatedly on her stomach, outraged her and holding her with her hair banged her head on the wall. She managed to flee her home with her phone and called me up crying on the phone throughout. I asked her to come and stay in my house for the night, both of us fearing he might kill her or grievously injure her if his madness continued. She stayed in my house for the night but then went back the next day to her house since her daughters were still there and also since in her words, she has no place to go but her husband’s house. Her twisted logic being that her husband brings her respect and protects her from other vultures (men with pervert intentions) out there. Coming to work used to be her only respite from this continuous torture, but ever since, because of the lockdown, CZs and other norms there's no chance for her escape. 

Two days back I received a call from Sunitha and she was as hysterical as that night. Her husband was at home, out of work, demanding her to get money so that he could buy himself liquor and a feast; he had hit her daughters too whom she had sent away to her neighbour to keep safe and now she was on the receiving end of his drunken wrath. In the ensuing madness, he had used a burning stick from the stove to burn her palm. I asked her to run out, take her daughters and come to me but she said the police had put her slum in a containment zone. She had run to them for help but they did not let her escape her slum, scolded her husband and sent both of them back to the hell.

Sunitha is a very simple and innocent woman and knowing that she’s getting beaten up by her husband I wanted to save her somehow. So, after much consideration here are some steps I took:

• I suggested she keep some part of her salary with me as a safe deposit. She need not tell her husband the entire amount she is earning—take some home, deposit some with me. This will help her feel financially secure incase she needs to move out.
• I searched a few women few helpline numbers in our city for and sent her the names with numbers—mostly NGOs working with women and children--Vimochana - 2549 2782/83. 080-25492783, Ashraya - 2525 1929, Hengasara Hakkina Sangha - 080-26639884. I asked her to write them down and call them if she can’t reach the police or me. Besides legal and financial help, she would also get counselling from them.
• I asked her to go to the women’s police station the next time it happens. And seek help from them.
• I also counselled on her that during the good days, she should try and get her husband into one of the alcohol rehabilitation centres and though it is a long process, get him off liquor.
• She should ensure her children are not victims of the same abuse and keep them away from even seeing the fights and the beating.  
• Apart from this, I am trying to find her reasonable quarters to live in besides the slum. Most quarters are managed by thekedars or contractors and they are bigger bullies than the people who rent rooms from them. To keep police and trouble at bay, these contractors do not allow any sort domestic violence to perpetrate in their rooms. That would give her some sense of security.

But most importantly, I am trying to tell her that a husband is not needed to survive in this world; her husband is not her ‘devtaa’; since she is the one earning she needs to take stronger decisions about living or not-living with him; if she gets seriously hurt who will take care of her children and they will be left orphaned with a maniac as a father and no mother; and that all her commitment to her marriage will be a waste if she dies at his hands one days; and that no one—neighbours, relatives, friends who currently are counselling her to not take things to heart and that husbands do this all the time and that she should go back to him—will come to her aid but her ownself...and so she needs to stand up against the society and its archaic thinking more than her husband.