Does abuse cross all boundaries?... Contd

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These women were doing what I had done with my friend at a much larger scale and in a more organized way. They were pooling their resources and unconditionally helping other women in need.

I went home and my roommate had invited some guys over for dinner. Over the course of time they had become my friends too. When I told them what I had heard about women brought here through arranged marriages who were being beaten, isolated and at times thrown out on the streets penniless in a strange country, one of the guys said, "Why can't you let them sort out their issues? You feminists have an organization to break marriages even in this country?"

I did not argue but smiled. I knew I was taking up a cause that would be much criticized by many. "We are educated. We don't beat our wives, it is auto rickshaw drivers and porters who beat their wives" is what I heard more often than not for the first few years.

Yet relentlessly, every opportunity I got I brought up the cause of Maitri and the need for many such organizations in the U.S. Slowly but surely we have created significant awareness in the past 14 years and Maitri receives well over 2000 calls a year in Silicon Valley alone from women in need.

People often ask me "how do you work with these women? It is emotionally draining to hear their stories." My response, "I don't hear their entire story. I get the picture and say, 'O.K. what can I do for you? Do you want a place to stay? Money to eat? Driving lesson? Attorney? School fees? What is it that we, from Maitri can do to help you begin a new life?'"

My friend who came to stay with me, almost a decade later appreciates me telling her, "Stop crying, quit feeling sorry for yourself and move on. You deserve better than him anyways." She is happily married now with a child. Life goes on, but the first step to leave an emotionally or physically abusive relationship is the hardest. Especially for Indian women as we have many more cultural barriers to cross and also being in another country with no family support makes it twice as hard.

When I first joined Maitri I was asked to attend a 40 hours mainstream training. I learnt a lot about legal issues, law enforcement procedures etc and also watched a videotape for an hour. The video is fresh in my memory. It was a documentary as told by four women of different color in prison.

One Black lady, a Mexican, a White and an Asian. One woman had 165 stitches on her. Her husband had tried to cut her into pieces with a kitchen knife. She shot him. Another woman ran out of her house in the dark while her husband tried to beat her to death. Helpless she tried to run towards her parents' house, a couple of miles away. Her husband drove around in the car looking for her and rammed her against a fence. She had several broken bones and ribs. She lit fire on his bed when he was asleep. Likewise, the other two also killed their abusive husbands.

Each judgment was, "The victim was defenseless when the crime was committed", the victim being the abusive husband and the women are in prison for life.

We can argue that the women are victims and the crime was committed against them. Yet in the eyes of the law they are the perpetrators of the crime.

These are women off different ethnic backgrounds. If, in America, a free society where dating and love marriages are the norm has issues of violence, why do highly educated Indians in arranged marriages believe this does not happen in our community? We only hear what we choose to hear.

I often told my stories to an Indian male colleague. One day he said, "Don't tell me these horror stories from Maitri, I am happily married." I believe all the men who beat their wives would say the same thing and add, "She makes me angry enough to hit her otherwise I would never raise my hand." Ladies, there is no excuse for violence and being hit once is once too many and the "Sorry, I will never do it again" is too little said too late. They never stop: the beatings and the sorry'.

About the Author: Asita Prabhushankar lives in San Jose, California. She works for IBM Corp. Stay tuned for her upcoming novel "Beyond the Call of Voice."