Adultery Indian Social Worker and the Bully by shiprat

[Ramesh_Rocky]

Indian Social Worker and the Bully Ch. 01

"It's not that straightforward, memsaab!" Parvati gently thumped the table with her bruised fists as she fought back her tears.

"Parvati, I understand." I got up from my chair, crossed the table and stroked her back to soothe her. "I understand it's not straightforward. Or even simple. But you have to do something or this will continue forever."

She then burst into tears. I sighed, picked up a box of tissues from my table and handed it to her. She used the tissues to wipe the tears from her face and blow her nose. This is the worst part of my job. Dealing with someone in denial about their situation.

I am a psychology graduate employed as a social worker with an NGO that specializes in helping out lower income women in Delhi. My expertise is counseling women under the poverty line, typically from the slums, who have been victims of domestic violence. When these women get beaten up or otherwise mistreated by their husbands, the security officer often get involved. The husbands are dragged away by security officer constables, beaten up, and spend a couple of days in jail. The women are brought to NGOs like ours where we help them recover from the trauma and try to counsel them on the best ways forward.

The security officer and the courts in India are nowhere close to perfect when it comes to dealing with women, but they generally at least try. The biggest problem that cops face in such cases is simple. The women are angry in the immediate aftermath of their trauma and are forthcoming about the abuses they have suffered. But after a couple of days, some traditional or familial instinct kicks in and they are not willing to press charges or testify. So the cops have to release the husbands. The security officer department is under-staffed and over-worked so they have to prioritize more serious crimes like murder and bang. So they put the case file away and then send the women to us.

My job is to counsel such women against changing their minds. To convince them, gently but firmly, that it is in their best interests to leave these men and have them put behind bars. And that is what I am trying to convince Parvati about.

"He is good with the girls. He really is!" Parvati took a break from her sobs and said.

"I believe you."

"He loves them. Always looks after them. It's just me he has issues with."

"Parvati, listen to me." I said. "Yes, he is good with the girls. Which means he doesn't hit them or abuse them. But he hits you. In front of them. Right?"

"Yes." she softly replied. "But it's only when he is drunk. When he is sober..."

"Don't use alcohol as an excuse..." I interrupted her "to justify his behavior. Alcohol doesn't change what a person is deep down inside."

Parvati opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it again and wiped her tears.

"Now if you continue to stay with this man, what example are you setting for your daughters? Do you want them to grow up internalizing the belief that it is okay for a man to just bash up his wife? Using alcohol as an excuse?"

"No!"

"When your daughters grow up, do you want them to be beaten up by their men? And accept it as normal?"

"NO!" Parvati raised her voice. "I don't want my daughters to have a life like mine. I want them to be..."

She paused and looked at me.

"To be like you, memsaab!" she nodded and continued. "Educated, mature, strong, and independent."

There it came again. The effusive praise for me from the female victims, a classic example of transference. In my rookie days, I tried to brush it off. But now I knew better. I still didn't fully indulge in it. Just tried to channel it in the right direction.

"Well Parvati, if you really want your daughters to be like me, you have to set a good example. Which means you have to do something about...what's his name again?" I flipped through the file.

"Lallan..." Parvati whispered with a shudder.

From the file, Lallan seemed to be quite the textbook problem case. No steady job, mostly lived off the money his wife made selling vegetables, habitual drunkard, got in fights all over, and beat up his wife regularly. The last time it happened, the beating had spilled over onto the street just as a security officer patrol car was driving by. They scooped up Lallan, put him in the station lock-up and one of the lady constables helped Parvati file a complaint. But in a couple of days, she had shown up to withdraw the complaint. And they had to let the guy go with a stern warning.