Zanjeer

XIII

It has been 5 months since her divorce already and life had become somewhat normal for Meher, well it would've been even more normal if she was not plagued with Asad's constant apology texts.

Even if she blocks one number he would contact her from another. At first Meher would ask him to stop contacting her but when he didn't stop, she decided to ignore him altogether.

Well there was some joy in her numb life, number one - her best friend Aadya, number two - her brother was getting married.

Although her brother is actually her cousin, but living in a joint family there's not much difference between the two.

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Meher was currently attending the haldi of her brother and her older cousins were in the front applying him with the yellow turmeric paste.

Just as it was going to be Meher's turn, her aunt called her urgently towards her.

She dragged Meher to a corner and grabbed her hand tightly, "Meher, what are you doing? You know right it really wouldn't be appropriate for you to apply Haldi to Adnan. " she whispered furiously.

At first Meher was confused and then the confusion slowly turned into realisation, but she still asked, "Why? "

"Oh come on, you are a divorcee. You really are not auspicious enough to do that anymore. You're life is not good enough, maybe it will also cause any mishappenings in his married life. " she told Meher.

Meher looked at her in silence as she scurried away towards the other guests. She is Adnan's mother, if she thought like that, what about the others.

And seeing that her own cousins and uncles and aunts were asking the others who were left to go and apply haldi to the groom, but every single person ignored her and didn't ask to come, Meher felt her heart breaking.

She stood in silence and when the ceremony was over went back to her room to begin packing.

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Meher was back at her real home, in her city away from her so called family.

At first her parents asked her to compromise, but she was adamant, she would not stay in a place where she herself was the epitome of inauspiciousness.

She has compromised enough, and that almost ruined her life, she won't compromise anymore.

As of this day, Meher Sheikh was going no contact with her extended family.

She really didn't expect her own family to treat her like that. Obviously she expected extreme judgement on her divorce, but such blatant discrimination was not on her to-do list.

Asad Khan really did what he promised to himself, he ruined her life.

Fun fact this is my secondary account!

I have a primary account on wattpad MS_2306 on which I used to upload stories, hehe

I want to talk about an important topic, which I glanced upon very lightly in the above chapter.

In India, A Divorced Woman Is Branded For Life.

In India, if a girl isn’t married by the age of 30, it means there’s something wrong with her because she is long past her marriageable age.

Another common regressive belief here is that divorce is shameful, especially for women.

With these messed-up belief systems, I’m sure you can imagine the extent of  disdain a divorced woman receives.

I do have to iterate that this is not the case with men.

Indians value cultural conformity over individuality.

We are famous for having close-knit families and communities, which often comes at the expense of respect for personal choices.

Boundaries and personal space are alien concepts, and everything a child does is a reflection of their upbringing.

So desi parents fixate on their children like projects.

Divorce is a dishonor to the family name, especially for the parents of a female divorcée.

A divorced woman is branded for life because she is no longer pure and is surely inadequate for not being able to keep her man.

Even if she does manage to get remarried, people will always hold on to the fact that her first marriage died.

And the worst part is, our society approves of death over divorce.