Saas-Bahu Ki Kahani: The Two Grindstones of Domesticity

 **2003**

The instance of a pair of mother-in-law and daughter-in-law sharing the same roof, enjoying complete cordiality of relations, is an exception rather than the general social norm which it should be.

It is a long, unending story of constant hagglings, friction, envy, plotting, quibbling, front- and backstabbings as well as bitings, strifes, scorn, jealousy, one-up-womanship, etc.

It would rather accommodate all the words of inter-relational woes.

Socially—and we need to explore their biological standings as well, for such antagonism seems inexplicable from social points and is sure to draw sustenance from fundamental forces of biology.

They stand so stubbornly and contradictorily that to come across an instance to the contrary arrives as a surprise.

This whole mass of this estranged relationship is messed up in such a puzzlement that we should not even try to find out who is at fault in a particular case.

It is a long downhill roll of the ball, sometimes justifiably prompted by her, sometimes unjustifiably by the other, sometimes both justified, other times both unjustified.

Sometimes it is fuelled by forces beyond our comprehension.

Perhaps it is a perilous fight over a certain status in the household and a particular hold over the manfolk.

Women, as we know, suffer and have been suffering in a traditional society like ours.

Yet a woman, even while being abused, beaten, bogged down, monopolised by the sheer force of the male members, enjoys a status which remains beyond the physical reproaches.

They are the lionesses.

They are the lionesses in this jungle, the jungle of secretive schemings.

The forest of domesticity, full of indirectly animalistic huntings by one woman at the cost of others.

They cling to this pathetic status, fight over it, clinging to the chain of their woes and oppressions.

They take eerie swings of sovereignty, come to the point of sharing it with another female and fight it out like angry cats fighting with horrible growls in the dark night.

It is a meaningless fight.

Noise, shrieks, quibblings, kitchen vessels topple down, scratches and bruises, exhausted lungs, perilous mewings, sleepless vigilant nights, days on tenterhooks.

See what is left of domesticity.

Manfolk in different avatars are carried by different winds like lifeless leaves on different occasions.

They roll around like a brass vessel on a shaking deck under the force of furious winds and storm.

And all of them suffer for each of his own and all others' faults.

All become guilty to the game.

There is no innocence left except in the eyes of much-perturbed children who, after a period of exposure to the nasty scenes, get used to it and grow up to repeat the same roles assigned to their particular sex.

What solution can there be when all shut their eyes to their own faults and become omniscient as far as others are concerned?

What solution can there be when a pinprick to your own body hurts a thousand times more than the very amputation of some limb from some other body?

What solution can there be when you become deaf, dumb and mute to the woes of others sharing the same roof?

What humanity is left in you when your heart softens only for you?

Saas and Bahu!

These are the two grindstones which try hard to grind each other to run the mill of domesticity.

Manfolk, however proud and haughty they might appear on the outside, are poor grains who wantonly go down the tube to be ground, ground to change their worth into something soft, crushed, pliable, malleable.

All this grinding work, all this grinding work is done at a considerable expense to the taunted, splintered, grinding faces of the opposite parties.

But they enjoy this terrible grinding work.

Ah, the squeeze, the pull, the friction!

The dominant force for running domestic life.

They roughen their own and others' ends, enjoying the sensation of battering and bruising.

Thus it goes, this terrible wear and tear for the sake of flour, flour of domestic life, for the sake of domesticity, for the sake of the matrimonial cart, for the sake of two times' meal, clothing, a shelter and some time in the bed.

Flour, with its own portion of stone crush of the two parts, the contradictory, ever-frictioning parts of the opposite parties.

And they eat it, eat it over a long period of time, eat it till their guts are worn out completely.

And as a replacement of old guts, domesticity gets new ones with the new generation and new relationships.