“I am responsible for the way my daughter is feeling today. I wish I could undo her pain and suffering”, cried Mrs Anita Chaudhary. She and her husband had forced their daughter to get married to a man of their choice based on his qualifications, income and societal status of the family. Sharmishtha, their daughter was a BCA graduate and before she could kick start her career, they had married her off. 

Being the only child Sharmishtha had always been responsible enough and managed her work, finances and everything well. She used to keep the money she was gifted safely in post office investments etc. We also used to talk to her frequently about money and other things.

But in her in-law’s house, even though she is the only daughter-in-law, she has been excluded from all the important decisions of the household. 

Mrs Chaudhary said, “Our daughter who was always in-charge of her life, suddenly has no authority over anything in her Sasural. Whenever she asks her husband anything about his investments, they just shoo her off because no finances are discussed with her as she is the daughter-in-law and need not bother with these small matters--that is the psychology of those people. She had some available time on hands and asked her husband to let her in on his investments and she could perhaps look after his equity shares etc., but for that too her husband went to his father-in-law to ask permission for and both he and Sharmistha were told to not focus on all this. Furthermore, immediately the day after this conversation, Sharmistha’s mother-in-law gave her a long winding lecture on how women should know their place in the house and not forget it--meaning a place in the kitchen or the bedroom and that’s it.

Even what she wears, eats or cooks, everywhere her in-laws interfere in the decision-making process and her husband just says yes to everything and moves out of the situation. 

Last week, they had a small puja for the house-Shanti and safety from the ‘virus’ it seems, everyone was dressed in their best and Sharmishtha was wearing none of the jewellery I’d given her during the wedding. When I asked her about it she said, her jewellery was kept in samdhanji’s bank locker for ‘safety purposes’. Usually when there are people to show her off, her mother-in-law decides what would best suit in front of her guests and give it to Sharmishtha to wear. Sharmishtha doesn’t have any rights on her own jewellery--the one that we had collected for her marriage and it really pains me. She had selected each and every design after carefully studying the shops in the market, comparing prices of gold, and making charges, and choosing designs. That is the amount of intelligence and effort my girl had put in her jewellery and now everyone just wants her to be a doll of their choice. It breaks my heart when I think about it.

I don’t understand why my daughter cannot keep HER jewellery with her?? Being a mother-in-law does not give them the right to hold my daughter’s belongings to themselves, do they? Nothing happens as per my daughter. I feel so bad when Sharmishtha has to eat things that she absolutely hates just because the food is cooked as per the family's taste and not hers. 

In 6 months of her married life, even when everyone was home as ‘supposed to bond’ during the quarantine time, she couldn’t develop a feeling of belongingness because of the way they treated her. When she used to tell me about the things, I started to feel like the whole family didn’t actually even want to feel like she belonged with them.

Being the ‘ladki wale’ we always tried to overlook the weird nature of her in-laws, but I actually wish we would’ve stopped the wedding talks right then, at least my daughter wouldn’t have to suffer so much. Now I am just left with haunting realisations and questions like, Why didn’t we see if Sharmishtha and Ansh Babu were actually compatible or not? Why didn’t we see her in-laws’ domination during the wedding and all the meetings before that??? We’ve pushed our daughter into a swimming pool where even if she is capable of getting through it, the people won’t let her! It is all our fault as parents and the worst thing is to witness everything helplessly...