The Enemy Within

 Today, on my way back from college at noon I stopped at a stall to buy grapes because the price was falling. The vendor was an elderly woman — she looked faint from the sun. I took a water bottle from my bag and handed it to her. Despite the heat, I asked gently, “Why are you working in this weather?” She replied, “I must feed my stomach.”

There is nothing surprising about hard work being the means of survival — earning one’s daily bread is the grind of life. But I asked, “At your age, when your health cannot keep up, why are you still toiling?” She answered, “As long as you live, you must keep yourself occupied. Our master died when the child was very small. I raised him alone — did odd jobs here and there, got him educated, got him married. Once he was settled, I could have rested, but a little money must still come into the house. If I don’t earn, my daughter-in-law won’t give me any household allowance. At my age I can’t afford to sit idle; if I sell grapes I earn a little more and hear a little less nagging from my daughter-in-law.”

I asked, “But doesn’t your son object to you doing such work at this age?” She said, “When it comes to running a household, he pretends to help, but inside the house there’s always friction between my daughter-in-law and me. To avoid greater quarrels, I bring in two coins by working — the next generation’s household is theirs; my riverbank is close to overflowing. I don’t want my quarrels to ruin his life.”

I bought grapes from her at that price and went home, but that night I couldn’t sleep. The thought haunted me: the same child she gave birth to, whom she raised with blood and bone and sweat, now lives in a house where his wife must pay his mother to remain. Is old age really so unbearable? How can the son she raised so firmly subject his mother to this helplessness in her twilight years? The daughter-in-law would not let another woman mistreat her, yet soon she herself may become a mother-in-law. What would happen if her mother were in that position? Both are women — but on wildly different planes.

One woman taught her son that only men should earn, then, faced with circumstances, took up work in someone else’s home so her son could be educated and succeed. The other, for a few coins, sends an aging mother into the sun to sell grapes even though the work is beyond her strength.

I saw in this daughter-in-law and mother-in-law the echoes of Sita from the epics and Hamlet’s mother — two archetypes of womanhood. If a devoted wife like Sita is to be placed on the throne merely because she is the queen, then even after being rescued from Ravana she must prove her chastity for her husband’s honor; she does so unquestioningly. In contrast, Hamlet’s mother, ensnared by ambition, kills her husband to seize power. What a contradiction! From the Puranas to today — Urmila, Sharmistha, Kaikeyi, Hamlet’s mother, and the modern woman — all have bowed to circumstance.

Whether Sita, the emblem of dutiful wifehood, quietly proves herself for her husband’s sake, or Hamlet’s mother, driven by greed, murders for power — these are stories written in scriptures and plays. But in our present Kali Yuga, the everyday reality is that a daughter-in-law calls her mother-in-law “mother” in name only, yet does not respect her age; she sends the aging woman out to work in the sun. Or an ambitious daughter-in-law brought into the home, without any thought for her future, is forced to bear a child simply to secure the family line, surrendering her dreams to household drudgery and the endless service of hosting guests.

Women have led movements and taught society lessons, yet when it comes to the home, the same women are often left defeated by circumstances. That is the bitter reality we live in today.

 — Bhakti Pansare