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My Mother Calls Me A S**t And All I Can Do Is Wait To Get Married To Leave Her House

( words)
*For representational purpose only.
Mine isn’t a love story, that I have to share with you. What I’m going to tell you, is just a few things from my life that has hurt me. And with no one to share it with, I’m using this medium. I’m a 21-year-old girl from Mumbai and I come from an orthodox South Indian family. My parents have brought themselves up on their own entirely, my dad is an NRI and my mom is a teacher. I was an average student until the 10th grade and I basically wasn’t allowed to have a single guy friend. And that’s why I had four girlfriends who were as studious and well, boring, as I was.

Things changed when I entered the 10th standard. It began with my friend circle. I met some nice and cool people with whom I could enjoy the rest of my school time. During this time, almost everyone had a mobile and if not, they were on Facebook. I wasn’t allowed either because my mom thought that Facebook wasn’t a safe medium to be on. She was sure that girls and boys used it to fall in love and eventually make plans to run away with each other on!

Of course, I didn’t see any sense in this theory of hers. After all, it depends entirely on the users; technically, if I had to run away, wouldn’t I find a way to do this without the help of a laptop? Anyway, one day, after much persuasion from a friend, she took me to a cyber café and helped me create a Facebook account.

I came home about an hour later, and my mom questioned me and then called my tuition teacher up to verify my story. Of course, I told her the truth about where I was and what I was doing. My mom went on for hours and hours, she spoke to me as if I was speaking to five or six unknown boys! She called my father and told him everything about it.

From then on, my Facebook account was operated only by my parents. If I got a request from a classmate, they would immediately check his background and find out his entire history. Somehow, I managed to get control of my account, with their blessing, but I was permitted to use it only in front of them. I wasn’t allowed to go out with my friends either. If they asked me to go for a movie, my mom would force me to take my younger brother along with me because it wasn’t safe.

I realized that what my mother was doing all these years to me was a mere dictatorship, but it took me a while before I could question her. In the end, all she did was blame my friends for attempting to turn me against them.

Let’s jump to the next year, I was waiting for my 10th standard results. For this, I used to come online, late at night and use the laptop when they were asleep. This continued for two months.

While surfing the net, I ended up finding some adult content and one day, my brother woke up and caught me using the laptop. The next morning, he told my parents about it and when they checked it, they found out what I was up to in no time.

That time, it was nothing less than a cyclone that hit me. They hid the laptop from me and taunted me for the next two years about this.

Now, I was already in the 12th and for my safety, my dad wanted me to use his old phone. My mom was absolutely against this and in the age of smartphones, she made me use an old keypad phone. And of course, since I wasn’t allowed to speak to boys, even now, I began saving all my guy friends numbers under girl’s names.

Meanwhile, I started dating a guy from my class. My mom caught me texting him and of course, my phone was taken away instantly. During this time, I had scored 93% on my 12th boards but even then, I wasn’t given a gift or anything to commemorate this score. My friends who got less than 60% were getting expensive gifts from their parents. They were all showing off what they got whereas I had just gotten my phone taken away from me again.

Finally, I got admission in a good college in Mumbai and of course, my parents gave me the same old phone to use. This time, my dad left the country to work in the Middle East. Somehow, in my second year of college, I damaged my phone and was given a simple Android phone to use. My mom believed that I wouldn’t be able to access the internet or such things with a simple phone so she was alright with me using it.

Now, with everyone around growing up and getting into serious relationships, I still wasn’t allowed to go out and meet with my friends, so I began bunking college to spend time with my boyfriend or friends. I was still dating that guy from my school, we were this on again, off again matter. I couldn’t help it, he was my first love after all. One day, my mom caught our chats. It was like she almost got a heart attack. She called my dad instantly and as usual, informed him of everything.

A lot happened after that it was almost as if I was under house arrest. They told me that I shouldn’t waste my time like this, with friends and boys, and should focus on my career and build a good reputation instead. This was necessary, of course, for them to be able to find a good boy for me. My idiot boyfriend still continued to try and continue our relationship, I don’t know why I agreed to it. After almost a month of this incident, I got a new phone and I texted him. I was surprised to find out that he, the boy who couldn’t live without me earlier, was dating someone else.

My dad knows that there’s a generation gap between us, so he is open-minded when it comes to everything except love. He wants his kids to go out and meet people so that we can communicate with people about various topics, but at the same time, he doesn’t believe in love. During the time when my dad was traveling, my mom would ask me to sleep in her room with her and when my dad was back, I would sleep in my brother’s room on the floor.

On one such summer night, I was barely awake when I caught my brother’s hand coming to touch my breasts! I caught his hand and yelled at him. He acted as if he was in his sleep and had no idea what was happening. The next morning, I told my mom everything, but to my horror, she believed him!

I called dad and told him everything, but by now my brother had already infiltrated my mother’s mind with all these horrible lies about me; including revisiting my past when I was caught watching adult content on the laptop. When I told dad about this, he immediately asked to speak to my brother and told him that if he came even a step closer to me, it wouldn’t be good for him.

Despite all of this, my mother still treated me like I was the one at fault. Even though I’m better in studies, knowledge and just as an overall person, she still thinks that her beloved son is the one who is going to bring fame to our family.

She’s embarrassed me in front of my friends and even called me a slut while talking to our other relatives. I would have attempted to end my life several months ago, but I only stop myself because I don’t want to waste it all just because of a horrid human being like her. She never tells my dad about the harassment that she bestows upon me and when I do tell him about this, she taunts me and convinces him that I’ve asked for it.

When I jokingly tell her that I’m ready to get married, she taunts me and tells me it’s probably because I’m thirsty for sex. I’m not allowed to go to beauty parlors because she thinks I do all of this just to spend time with another man the next day. If I do a face cleanse at home, she’ll find a way to make me stay with her.

In a nutshell, I hate my mother; the one woman who is supposed to bring me up as a respected woman. She doesn’t have this ability to understand, or even look at me as her own.

I’ve no interest in marriage, but I feel like that’s my only way out of this house: to go from one jail, possibly to another. Even today, at the age of 21, I’m questioned a hundred times about why I’m on the phone, with whom and why I’m talking for so long. Doesn’t God have mercy on me? Even in a modern age like this, why am I being treated like this? If someone was in my place, they would have ended their life. I hate my mom. I pray that my future will be a better one.

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