Social Worker And Bully

[KKANE403]

"It's not that straightforward, memsaab!" Mangal gently thumped the table with her bruised fists as she fought back her tears.
"Mangal, 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 Mumbai. My expertise is counselling 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 Mangal about.
"He is good with the girls. He really is!" Mangal 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."
"Mangal, 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 behaviour. Alcohol doesn't change what a person is deep down inside."
Mangal 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!" Mangal 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 Mangal, 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..." Mangal 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 Mangal 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.
"So, you see my point?" I asked.
"Yes, memsaab." Mangal nodded earnestly.
"The only way forward is for you to file a security officer complaint, make him take his punishment as the law decides, and then we can help you leave him and divorce him."
"Divorce????" she sounded shocked.
"If you care about your daughters, that's the only way. So... are you ready to press charges? I know all the cops in that security officer station. They will help you. And we can also help you a lot."
"I don't know, memsaab...divorce seems so extreme!"
But I pressed on. I used all the persuasive skills at my disposal, all the things I had learnt in my training, everything I knew from my five years of experience in this job, to talk Mangal into acting on her own survival instincts. Finally, I seemed to have broken through.
An hour later, I was on the phone with Inspector Patil who had referred her case to me. Mangal, I noted with a sense of accomplishment, was pressing charges against her abusive husband. As long as she testified, he would be sent away for a couple of years, and she could get a divorce as well as sole custody of her kids. Then another division of our NGO would help her resettle in another city so if her husband decided to get vengeful after getting out of jail, he couldn't torment her more. I closed the file from my side.
I felt cautiously optimistic about this case. Part of this job was regular disappointment. An odd kind of reverse recidivism where women we convinced still changed their minds and went back to their battered lives despite having the option to escape. Whenever that happened, I felt sad and defeated.
Years of this had taken a toll on me, and my husband Raju had seen it from close quarters. He saw me go from a perky and idealistic aspiring social worker at 22 when we started dating, to a slightly hardened postgrad during my internships at 25 when I got married, to an often morose and cynical veteran now at 30. Raju often tried to convince me to quit the job and do something less stressful and depressing. I resisted, knowing that what I was doing made a difference. But as the years passed, it was getting harder and harder to resist his suggestions.
So, when Raju's company decided to send him to the US on an onsite assignment with the possibility of a green card, I decided to change my career tracks too. I took the GRE and starting sending applications to doctoral programs in social psychology. With a good score and a hefty experience in social work on the frontlines, I was optimistic that I would soon enter the world of academia and leave this soul-sapping job behind.
I was counting the months.
I saw Mangal again a month later. She walked into my office looking considerably more cheerful and entirely free of bruises. She was accompanied by a short wiry man. Maybe her brother, I presumed.
"Namaste, Shikha memsaab." Mangal said, and was echoed by the man in a flat voice.
"Namaste." I smiled at her and looked at the man questioningly.
"Memsaab, this is Lallan, my husband."
What the hell? I thought this case was closed and the guy would be in jail by now. The inspector as well as the prosecutor had assured me that it was an open and shut case as long as Mangal didn't recant.
"Oh umm... namaste!" I said, not sure of what to say now that this woman had brought her tormentor along. I couldn't very well ask her in front of him about what happened with the security officer complaint. And why the man was here in my office with her. "Please sit down."
"Memsaab, we have come to thank you. Because of your advice, our marriage is now on the mend. Lallan has given up drinking, gotten a job, and things are really great like they used to be." she said, beaming and putting her hand on her husband's.
He had been staring at the table until then. At her touch, he first looked at her and then at me. For a second, I felt like there was a flash of anger in his eyes. But it passed. And he started talking.
"Yes, thank you very much, memsaab. I know I have not been a great husband. And I have made a lot of mistakes. But in the future, it will be different. I love my wife and my daughters, and will do anything to not lose them. I will change."
Although his words sounded very genuine and sincere, there was a hint of rehearsed pretence to the way he said them. I did not believe he could change. More than that, I did not believe he wanted to change. I had handled many such cases, and the patterns are predictable.
I wasn't sure what to say. I just looked at him and nodded. That's when my cell phone rang. It was a cousin calling.
"Excuse me, I have to take this." I said to the couple in front of me and answered the call. "Hi, Priya, what's up? I am at work. Can I call you back in a little while?"
"Shikha Didi, this will only take a second. I'm sending out the wedding invitations today and I just realized I don't have your new address."
My husband's project had entered a critical stage and he had to go to the US nine months earlier than the original plan. Our lease was almost up anyway, so we had given up our old rental apartment, and after he left, I had temporarily moved into a house belonging to his cousin who was also away in the US with his family.
"Oh ok...I will text it to you."
"Could you just tell me right now? I am typing out the labels and I have to get this done soon." she said.
"Alright it's House number 134, Sector G4..." I gave her the address right down to the pin code.
"Thank you, Didi. Bye."
I hung up the phone and got back to Mangal and Lallan.
"Well, I am happy you recognized the error of your ways." I said.
"I really have." he nodded. "I haven't touched alcohol in a week, and I have been hired as a cleaner by a transport company. I will be accompanying trucks on long haul trips to Bangalore. In fact I am leaving for my first one tomorrow."
"That's good. A steady job is the backbone of a healthy lifestyle." I said, while thinking to myself, it's good that he will be away for many days, and have less time to beat up his wife.
There was a little more polite small talk, and then they left, looking very happy together.
But I was troubled. I did not think Mangal was thinking straight. If she had been alone, I could have at least tried to talk some sense into her. But bringing the husband along meant that my options were limited.
I called up Inspector Patil next. He and I had gotten to know each other well over the years. He was that rare honest cop who also had empathy. While most cops in Mumbai believed NGOs were a waste of time, Anil Patil was different.
"Shikha...I have been expecting your call." he said. "I guess you heard about Sunita."
"No...what about Sunita?"
"Oh sorry...I thought you heard. She was...found dead yesterday. Stabbed. Her husband is on the run."
"Shit!" I felt sick to my stomach. I had tried really hard to convince Sunita to leave her husband just like I had with Mangal. But it hadn't worked. I said, "I wish I could have done more, Anil."
"You did all you could, Shikha. There's only so much you can do. Anyway, what were you calling about?"
"About a similar case...Mangal and Lallan...let me get you the case number."
"Oh, you don't need to. I remember that case. Same old story. She agreed to press charges. We had the husband in the lock-up for a few days. But then she came and took the complaint back. We had to release him again."
"Yes, I just saw her."
"You know why I remember the case? That Lallan fellow...he really gives me the creeps. I can see that he is much more of a sadistic psychopath than the others. Usually in the lock-up, these guys are remorseful, begging for forgiveness, promising to change. This guy was like a stone. Not a hint of remorse."
"I know exactly what you mean. Mangal just brought him along. He parroted promises of changing his behaviour and everything. But there's something ominous about him."
"Hmmm...if she doesn't wise up soon, I am sorry to say, I think she might end up going Sunita's way."
"Can't you...do something about him, Anil?" I had seen how Mumbai security officer worked and how much power they had at their discretion.
"I looked at that possibility. But other than the wife-beating thing, his record is clean. Nothing else that I can use to lock him up." the good thing about Anil being a straight shooter cop who played by the rules could have some disadvantages as well.
"Maybe I should try talking to her again. Alone."
"Maybe. But I doubt it will help, Shikha. I know you have tried hard. But trust me, when a woman like that backs off twice, chances are she is going to back away a third time and a fourth time and so on."
"You know me, Anil. I still have to try."
"Yes, I know." he said. "We are really going to miss you when you go to America, Shikha."
"I will miss you too, Anil." I said. - "Madam...are you sure you have the right address?" the Uber driver said. I guess he was surprised and a bit worried to see an upper class memsaab like me wanting to go to one of the seedier slums of Mumbai late in the evening. But I had to go in the evening, because according to Mangal's file, she would be working during the day. "Yes, I do. I am a social worker who deals with slum women and their problems." I said.
"Oh ok then. You seem to know what you're doing." My answer seemed to satisfy him.
I had waited for a few days, trying to decide if I should really go to Mangal's place. On one hand, Anil was right, it probably wouldn't have a long-term impact. But on the other hand, the Sunita case was weighing heavily on my mind. I felt like I had failed her. And now here was another case that could go the same way. In half a year, I would be away in the plush confines of some American university. That also made me feel like making my remaining months here count that much more. So I finally decided to make the house call, something that was unprecedented. I had never visited any of my cases in their home before.
I was dressed in a simple salwar kameez, but I still drew stares from men, women, and children as I walked through the narrow and dirty by lanes. I had a folder in one hand with a can of pepper spray inside, in case some men got any fresh ideas. You can never be too careful in Mumbai.
Finally, asking a couple of friendly old women for directions, I reached Mangal's house.
"Shikha memsaab!" she sounded surprised when I poked my head in through the door of a tiny single room brick house. She was serving her daughters a simple meal of dal and rice.
"Mangal, I need to talk to you."
"Please come in, memsaab. Have a seat. Please join us for dinner."
"It's okay. I just ate."
"Please memsaab, just a little."
I accepted a tiny portion, knowing that refusing too insistently could be seen as a sign of condescension or ingratitude. I spoke to the girls, asking what they studied, what they liked to play, and so on. Mangal probably knew why I was there, because she didn't make much eye contact. I did notice though that there was a fresh bruise on her arm that she kept trying to hide with her pallu.
"You girls go to Pinky's place and watch some TV." she sent the girl away after dinner, closed the door behind her, and then turned to face me.
"Do you know why I am here, Mangal?" I said.
"Who told you? Was it that nosy Naina? Anyway, it was nothing major, memsaab."
"Told me what? What was nothing major?"
She stayed silent.
"I can see the bruise on your arm, Mangal. Are there more bruises...under your clothes?"
She nodded and started to sob.
"But it was nothing big, memsaab. At least nothing big enough for you to come here and get involved. He was having one last night of drinking with his friends to celebrate his new job before going on that truck to Bangalore. He just got a little carried away in bed and slapped me around a bit. It wasn't like he was hitting me out of anger." "Wait...what are you saying? That these bruises are from sex?"
"Yes! That's what I am saying. It's not like that last time." she smiled and said. "Last time it was from a fight. This is just from sex." "You think it's okay for him to hit you during sex?"
"Yes...I mean no...no...it's not that...it's...you won't understand memsaab. But believe me, he has changed." she sincerely believed it.
I sighed, opened the folder and took out a Hindi newspaper. And I walked towards her.
"Sunita also told me something like that. That her husband had changed."
"Sunita?"
I handed her the newspaper and pointed the story to her. She read slowly, moving her lips, as her eyes got big.
"What are you saying, memsaab?" she asked, her voice now almost a whisper.
"I have been doing this work for many years now. I see similarities. In fact, I think your husband is even more psychotic than Sunita's was. And that nice inspector who helped you the last time? He thinks so too. Sunita was once sitting in the same chair in my office you were sitting in. She was making the same excuses, telling me her husband had changed. See where she is now."
I was a little relieved to see that the news seemed to have shaken Mangal as much as I had hoped it would. She stayed quiet, just staring at the newspaper. Finally she started talking.
"Sometimes...sometimes...I really am scared that he will kill me."
"Then leave him, Mangal. Leave him. Go back to the cops. I know Inspector Patil. He will re-arrest Lallan. And our NGO can help you move. They had already started the process last time. I checked. We can expedite it. If you want, I can have you and your daughters on a train tonight."
"Train where?"
"I don't know that. I can't know that. It is kept secret from everyone except for a few people so it doesn't leak to your husband. But it will be a train to a new place, a new life. Our people will put you up in a new home temporarily, help you find a job, put your daughters in a college, even get you new names if you want." "But...Lallan...?"
"If you re-file the complaint, they will arrest him. And you won't have to see him again. When you testify against him, it will be through video conference." "Video conference?"
"By TV...you can tell the judge what you want sitting in whichever town you are in. Even your divorce will be handled that way and expedited. We will take care of everything, Mangal. You just have to say yes."
"But...memsaab...it feels unfair. He has changed."
"He said in my office he had given up drinking. And yet you tell me he just drank..."
"But that was to celebrate."
"You can make up any number of excuses for bad behaviour, Mangal. But think about your daughters."
This back and forth went on for a while. But maybe it was my extra passion and anger because of the Sunita case that finally carried the day through. After an hour's argument and cajoling, Mangal finally agreed.
Things moved rapidly after that. It didn't take her long to pack her meagre belongings and get her daughters ready. I had pulled a lot of strings and called in a lot of favours to make this case move fast. Very soon, she was sitting alongside me in the security officer station in front of Inspector Patil, giving a more detailed statement that was videotaped this time. Then our relocation team came and whisked her and her daughters away.
Before leaving, Mangal hugged me tight and thanked me for saving her life. Her tears moistened my kameez shoulder. As I watched her go and wave me goodbye, for the first time in a long time, I felt a sense of exhilaration about doing my job.
"You did a great job today, Shikha."
"Thank you, Anil." I smiled. "What about the husband? Can you contact the truck company, find out where he is and get him arrested?"
Anil grimaced and paused.
"I'm sorry, Shikha. I know how much this case means to you. And so I have done all that I could. But it takes a lot of resources to carry out an arrest in another state. If it were up to me, I would have made it happen. But there's a whole machinery in place that has to move to make it happen. And frankly, a guy with an otherwise clean record, and wanted only for beating his wife doesn't rank high enough in the priority list."
"I understand." I said, feeling a little sad.
"But I have made arrangements to have him arrested as soon as he gets to Mumbai. Don't worry about it."
"Thank you, Anil. I appreciate all your help."
There was a spring in my step for the next couple of days. Even my colleagues noticed it and a lot of them congratulated me as word of my extra efforts in the Mangal case spread. I got a letter from the relocation team saying that Mangal and her daughters had been put up in a small house and she had already found a job. It had no details about where she was, as per protocol, but it felt good to know that she was okay and away from her psychotic husband.
And then the following week, I got more great news.
"RAJU!! I GOT INTO STANFORD!!" I yelled as soon as he answered the phone.
"Whoa! Congratulations!!" he said in the middle of his meeting.
Stanford was my dream college, not only because it was the best social psychology department for my research interests, but also because it was in the San Francisco Bay area, where Raju's job was. In a little over eight months, I would be with my husband in San Francisco, getting a PhD at my dream college. Life could not get any better. After talking to Raju, I WhatsApp-ed all my close friends and cousins to break the news. They were delighted. And in a matter of minutes, plans had been made to celebrate this triumph. Dinner at a fancy restaurant, followed by drinks at the hottest new pub in town.
"It's so foggy, yaar." one of the friends on our WhatsApp group said.
"Fuck fog! It's not every day that one of us gets into a dream university! We have to celebrate!" another friend said.
And celebrate we did. I dressed up nicely, something I rarely got to do in my day job. And my friends picked me up and whisked me away for a night of revelry. Rich foods, followed by a long sequence of toasts and tequila shots. I was happier than I had ever been. I only wished Anuj could've been there with me.
"Damn...in your colony it is...verrrrry froggy." a friend I was leaning against said.
"Froggy?" I asked and giggled. We were all quite drunk.
"Foggy...you know what I mean."
We giggled as the Uber slowed down in front of the house I was currently staying in.
"Okay Shikha...that's your stop." my friend Piyush said. "Should I door you to your drop?"
"Ha-ha...it's okay." I said. "Door me to my drop? You sound more drunk than me. I'll manage. Thank you again, guys. Love you."
"Love you too, Shikha. Congratulations. Don't forget us when you become a hot shot Stanford grad!"
I got out of the car and found my balance on the high heels with some trouble. I was drunk but not pass-out drunk. I blinked as my eyes got used to the dark outdoors. It really was foggy, even by Mumbai winter standards. From the gate, I couldn't even see the door of the house 50 feet away. I opened the gate of the house and walking with great concentration, made my way up the walkway. It seemed like a struggle to even reach the door. That's when my phone rang.
"Hi darling!" I said, slurring.
"Ha-ha, you sound so drunk." Raju said.
"Well I am drrrrrunk." I giggled.
"Congrats again, honey. You wanna skype for a bit?" he asked.
"Hmm...I'd love to, but I am really tired and drunk. I think I am gonna just get inside the house, drop on the couch, and fall asleep."
"Okay. Send me a text when you wake up and we'll talk."
"Okay, love you."
"Love you too."
I disconnected the phone and walked up to the door. Standing against the door for support, I opened my purse. It took me a while to find the keys in my purse. My head was still swimming a little from the drinks. I tried to put the key in the lock but my shaking hand kept slipping.
That's when a figure stepped forward from the fog.
"Need some help, memsaab?"
"Wh-who?" The voice seemed vaguely familiar. Was it one of the neighbours? Or maybe the colony security guard?
"Don't you recognize me?" the man whispered menacingly.
I blinked and stared at the short wiry figure in front of me. Who was this man? He looked familiar.
"I am the man whose life you have ruined." he said angrily, and then moved swiftly to grab me.
It was Lallan! Mangal's husband! He was standing right next to me, looking very angry, just as I was alone in front of my house drunk on a foggy night! My heart sank.
I tried to yell and call for help. But I couldn't.
Lallan pressed one hand firmly on my mouth muffling my sounds of protests and with the other pulled my hair really hard. My purse and phone dropped from my hands as I waved them trying to fight him off. If I were sober, I would have been able to. I am 5 ft 8 and have an average built. I was six inches taller than him and probably weighed more too. But with half a dozen drinks in my system, I wasn't exactly well coordinated. And although short and thin, he had a really strong grip. He kept muffling any sounds from my mouth and pushed me against the door even harder.
I tried to kick him, especially aiming for his crotch. But the high heels made me lose my footing and I almost fell down. He kept his grip on my hair and mouth and bent down as my legs gave way, all the while muttering obscenities,
"You arrogant two-faced bitch...you make my wife leave me because I drink and now you are traipsing around town getting drunk..."
Finally my flailing hands made an impact. My palm landed right on his face resulting in a loud resounding slap. He was stunned for a moment by how hard I slapped him. But then I saw rage flash in his eyes as he took his hand off my mouth and responded in kind. He slapped me very hard back-handed across my right cheek. The force of that slap made my face sting and brought even more tears to my eyes. I was stunned for a couple of seconds.
"HELP!! HELP!!" I shouted, taking advantage of my mouth now being open. Hopefully one of the neighbours would hear me. But he immediately put his hand on it again. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and gagged me with it. I guessed I wasn't the first person he had gagged because he did it with expertise. Shoving the rolled up fabric into my mouth and then with two fingers, pushing it all the way in so it pressed down on my tongue and against my tonsils, cutting down the air supply to my mouth. I tried to dislodge the gag with my tongue, but to no avail. My nose was now the only source of oxygen.
He then grabbed both my hands by the wrists and held them behind my back. Squatting behind me, he reached towards the keys that had fallen on the ground when he lunged at me. Still struggling, I heard him put the key in the lock and turn it. Our combined weights against the door made it open instantly. He still had both my hands in a tight grip and using my wrists, he pulled me into the house. I had left the lights on, knowing I would be drunk getting home. I had no idea this would unwittingly make his vile task easier.
I heard the door slam shut behind us. I was flailing and kicking with my legs, but all it was making me do was rotate around on my butt helplessly.
"Stand up!" he whispered pulling my arms up painfully behind my back. My heels slipped a couple of times as I tried to get on my feet, not to obey him, but thinking that standing up, I might be able to fight him off. But I wasn't able to. Much of my motor skills were being expended in staying in balance on the heels. I still struggled hard, hoping to catch him off guard for even one second.
"Umggghhhh!" I groaned as he pulled me closer and punched me hard in the side. That made me lose my breath.
"Stop fighting or I will punch you in the chest and crack your ribs." he said, pushing me around. And then punched me again. Even as I was struggling for my own survival, I could not help but this of how he must have assaulted Mangal like this.
I was still trying to wrestle my arms free. It did not seem to be working.
"Nice big house you live in, you rich bitch. Living in these nice houses and then breaking up the homes of us poor people? Don't you have any shame?" he said angrily.
Suddenly I felt his grip on my wrists loosen. I swerved around and swung my hand to hit him. But he easily ducked out of the way. And then he balled his hand into a fist and punched me in my stomach hard. That made me double over in pain and brought more tears to my eyes. He grabbed one wrist again and started pulling me towards the seating area. Even as he dragged me, I landed a couple of kicks on his shins, but it didn't stop him.
"Move, you fat cow, unless you want to me turn you into a cripple!" he whispered ominously in my ear as I stumbled towards a couch. I was still trying to fight him off, but by now exhaustion from the struggle had crept in, adding to my already dulled motor controls because of all the drinks. My resistance was having very little effect on him. He finally dragged me towards the back of a couch and held me against it, the edge of the backrest digging sharply into my stomach. he pulled my wrists behind my back again. I was still trying to kick at him with whatever strength I had left, but by now he had figured out the angles to avoid them.
"I can smell how drunk you are, you whore." Lallan said a little breathlessly as he reached for the decorative throw resting on the top of the couch backrest. It rubbed against my stomach as he pulled it off. "And yet you are fighting like a feisty cat."