“Why am I forced into doing things that I don’t like? Do my in-laws get some sort of a sadistic pleasure out of this?” asks Guneet Chawla, who got married in January this year, in Patiala, Punjab.

“I never liked cooking even in my house and I was happy to know that my in-laws had a full-time cook. I like baking but regular daal, roti, chicken is not my forte. 

After my marriage, my in-laws expected me to cook which I did with the help of the cook bhaiya. I used to manage all the meal with his help and found the arrangement convenient.

But in February, within a month of my marriage, my mother-in-law came into the kitchen one day. I was frying something and ordering the cook bhaiya to do some chopping for me.

I don’t know what ticked her off, but she went into a rage. She called me names, taunted me and screamed at me saying that why am I asking the cook bhaiya to do anything and that I should do it all on my own.

The next thing I know was that the cook bhaiya was fired!!!

All to teach me a lesson…

All to make me work…

All to show me my status in the family...t

All to tell me that I am to do everything on my own and that I will be given no help!!!

This behaviour is beyond my understanding...I tried to reason with them, but nothing came off it. I was repeatedly told that I had to cook from now on and all the meals.

I don’t understand where I went wrong...or atleast tell me...my in-laws seem to be punishing me for something that I didn’t do, or did...I feel they are punishing me for being me…

But I need to ask them something

When their own daughter can have the convenience of houshelps, why is it denied to me and when they can afford it? Am I also not someone else’s daughter? Why this need to show me my aukat or position in the family? Would they do it to their own daughter or son...show them their aukat. Why is it okay for them to mistreat someone else’s daughter just because she married in your family?

For me this tatamounts to domestic abuse...I am threatened with no food if I do not cook myself...The family will eat and leave me out of a meal conveniently...They will save for me the last slices of bread, or stale bread, just because I once told my mother-in-law that I can’t eat old, dry bread.

What kind of pleasure do these people get from torturing me,” says Guneet, all the while weeping on the phone to the counsellor.

We all have a right to say no just as we have a responsibility to take care of the family, but we have no obligation to tolerate abuse of any kind.