Are modern Desi women victims of mental - physical or sexual abuse?

From Dr.Vijay Mehta's blog :


On a recent discussion at Smile moon's blog few ladies brought up the subject of Abuse in desi relationships and marriage. Here is my response.

Our ladies eagerly wait the defining moment in their life - high school graduation. This is supposed to be the time when they get out of their jail (home). The wonderful home (may be with lot more amenities and space than the dorm room) is now something she is so excited to leave. Why? For past 4-5 years she feels like a captive in her own home. The well-meaning parents are simply too strict to allow her high hormones to run wild. Every step of the way she is trying to balance her inner drive to be like every other teen (have a boy friend - hang out - hook up and so on) versus what parents would allow. In so many cases she is counting days - hours or minutes to the departure time.

Finally that time comes. She can almost hear, "Free at last, Free at last thank you Matajee I am Free at last" in the air as she drives out of her own parking lot with a big smile.

Now she is ready to fulfill her dream without the constant guarding of those two or sometimes more (brother) guards. She is thrilled. Little does she realize that she is stepping out of so called jail into a jungle.
Playing field in the college is lot different than the one in high school. With so few desi girls out there to venture openly during high school time there was an artificial scarcity of girls compared to boys. This changes radically in college campus.

The first meeting of Indian Student's Association is checking out the new merchandise time. For the guys new stock has arrived! Poor girl she is too ill equipped to deal with this. All the relationships she had so far were underground. She has not quite understood the men and her needs and wants.

She is emotional. She thinks finding the love from the right person will make her happy. For the guys, they are more focused on the physical need rather than being that emotional support. After initial playing hard to get our woman falls one after the other. Some take a little longer than the others. But vast majority of them need so-called relationship to feel complete.

Now the tragedy starts. Guys suddenly realize that woman is so emotionally dependent on her and there are simply too many out there so he changes. You teach people how to treat you. Our outstanding woman starts compromising - step-by-step this escalates. She is tolerating emotional abuse - it may move on to sexual abuse and in many cases goes on to physical abuse. Bad boys suddenly seem sexy. Being a trophy girl friend seems better than being single. She cries. She is sleepless in campus. Our woman is frustrated. She feels if she can dump the boy friend number one she can find better. On an average it takes about 2 years and 3-4 serious attempts to break up. Finally she moves on - bruised, jaded, scarred but still addicted to love. This is almost like an addiction - you want to get rid of it but you cannot live without it.

You would think that now she would have learned a lesson. No, she is simply going to replace one abuser for the other. She is emotional slave. Her beauty actually works against her - because too many losers are willing to stalk her until she gives in. The good ones are likely to stay away. None of these is openly discussed. They all act out as if they are the virtuous women like their parents would like to think. But from inside too much damage is already happening.

She thinks all men are dogs but she does not realize that she has become a dog magnet. Good ones are simply staying away from her. She blames the men but she does not realize that major part of blame lies with her. The only person whose behavior is under your control is YOU. Being a single is not quite a happy option. At after parties she is treated like a community property and groping & grabbing is allowed once the alcohol level reaches the threshold.

And the saddest part is - the 'war within' is fought by her alone. The people who are closest to her (parents) are out of the loop. Imagine Arjuna in Mahabharat without Krishna. No one to guide her, if she is willing to listen. Occasional counsel from her friends does not help they are also in the same boat.

I recognized this nearly 15 years ago. I started chatting to random youth on AOL. It was a shocking revelation. They could openly share their dirty little secret with me due to the cover of anonymity. All those countless hours on AOL made me the cool uncle you see to day.

To day when I am talking to a woman in early thirties who can not find a man, I wonder how much price she is paying for her years 18 -22? After a decade, and half a dozen such relationships later, she is now ready for marriage. She is expected to play the role of loving, caring, forgiving woman like her mother. She is not her mother. Her experience has taught her that forgiveness is a weakness. I will get him before he gets me is the mantra. She does not recognize that love is a powerful weapon over a long time. Desi men of to day are the most miserable generation of Desi men in the history. Up to my time women at least showed some respect and restraint in dealing with us (at least in public). Even that is gone now. They feel like they are victims.

One anonymous blogger pointed out to me that in my description I left out a subset that basically played by the desi rules and stayed away from dating, relationship etc. Here is my response:

Yes anonymous thanks for bringing up the plight of the subset of those women let us call it Desi at core. Here is her story...

She went through the college years focused and avoided the whole relationship drama. Many of these women had amazing achievements to show for. She might have been labelled hard to get. She probably thought my family will find the right match for me. As the time goes by the ability of family to find the match goes down rapidly. You guys have made us irrelevant in the process of finding your match. (that is why I had to be very creative to put my self back in equation.)

Now, when she enters the search at late twenties or later she is lost. She feels quite uncomfortable with causal encounters. Sometime she can not tell the difference and engages her self thinking this was a serious encounter only to find out that it was not. She is relatively inexperienced in the games that people play. She is expecting common decency. The frustration mounts, desperation sets in.

There is no logical explanation for why such virtuous women with low baggage and high accomplishment do not have a long line of suitors. Even the parents admit to me that had they known of this coming they would have encouraged their daughter much earlier to find the mate. For many of these woman the old style arranged marriage may seem like a blessing.


Any discussion of male female dynamics turn into a blame game like this one is likely to. However, what both sides do not realize is that you are a victim of rapidly changing paradigm and lack of out strategy to deal with it.


If you have a story to share please forward it to me at vijayvip@aol.com or post it on my blog at vijayuncle.com go to desi dating and mating
http://vmehta.conforums3.com/index.cgi?board=marriage

Also check out http://vmehta.conforums3.com/index.cgi?board=WakeUp
Thank you.