Breaking The Shackles Of Societal Pressure

The Story of Allison

The female, the weaker gender, the subordinate gender, the softer gender – these attributes are mostly used to define the women and the girls. This is the story of Allison, who found the courage to stand up to her family and break the shackles of societal pressure.

When the tiny droplets of the rain touched her face, Allison was transported back to ten years back when the journey of her extraordinary struggle began. She reminisced about her childhood years of rain and the joy of drenching completely after playing with the army of tiny droplets.  

Coming from a humble background, Allison, a 14 year-old girl, had always been a girl filled with imagination. Allison was different from others in her family. She loved music and painting. Allison had a loving elder sister, Leena, her Ma and Pa. However, the family had some financial constraints and considered marrying the girls as a burden. Leena, her elder sister had attained the ‘age of marriage’ as per their community’s standards and her parents were busy looking for a prospective groom for her. However, Leena’s facial features were such that most guys used to reject her. Leena was but a girl with strong self-respect and extremely talented and thus cared little about rejections. Allison was too young to think about all this, as she was happy in her own world. She used to go to school with friends and had many male friends as well. She rather had a ‘gang’. She also had a strong bond with her elder sister whom she used to address as ‘Li’ and her elder sister used to call her ‘Alli’. Her gang had both boys and girls of her age and they used to admire Allison for her painting skills. She also had a great sense of humor. Her friends learnt about it when they used to visit her house during holidays.

Her life was moving along quite happily until one day, everything changed. The fun-loving, talented girl was turned into a machine, a robot that was just meant to take orders and perform tasks. Her ordeal began on the night when her family had invited other families of their community to dinner. For Allison, it was just the usual tradition of her community to come together and enjoy establishing stronger bonds. She soon realized that it was meant for Li who had to choose and be chosen by the men who had come to dine with them. The feast went on well and all the prospective grooms had a chance to look at Leena and decide if she was worth their commitment. In the meanwhile, Allison was happy serving the guests and helping her mother. In addition, Allison even entertained the guests with her singing. However, there were a few things that Allison noticed which made her slightly uneasy. She was 14 so she had a little idea of what is a good or a bad look and a good touch or a bad touch. Anyways, the dinner was over or rather the ‘test’ for Leena was over and then came the time for the judgment. Leena told her parents that she was not impressed by any of the men that had come to dinner. It was later revealed that none of the men chose Leena either. In the meantime, Allison entered the discussion and heard some of Li’s comments. She hugged Li and said, “None of those filthy-looking ‘uncles’ could have suit you”. ‘I would never even think of marrying any of those”, she then added.

The Oppressive Norms of Society

Days passed and one rainy night, Allison’s mother received a call from some unknown number. Both sisters anxiously looked at their mother but could not comprehend the matter. The mother had strange reaction to the phone call and the daughters were trying hard to guess from her expression but to no avail.

When their father asked who was it and what was the matter, the mother replied, “They want to marry our daughter”. Hearing this, the father was ecstatic but Leena and Allison did not look happy. Leena did not like any of the men and Allison did not want to lose her Li. The mother instructed Allison to go to her room and sleep, Allison obliged but she was feeling strangely curious and anxious. She went to her room but was feeling restless and decided to listen secretly to her Ma and Li’s conversation. Allison tippy toed towards the wall of her room and rested the side of her face gently against the wall while her eyes rotated from one corner to the other. She could not clearly understand the words her Ma was saying but managed to hear Leena’s voice as thankfully she was close enough to hear. Allison first heard Leena say, “Allison?” and then heard, “You think she deserves to marry now, she is too young”. Allison’s mouth dropped wide open and she could not believe whatever she just heard. Her eyes stretched wide and she almost went blank. She pressed her ears harder against the wall and hoped dearly that she heard it wrong. Her act was disturbed by the heavy footsteps coming towards her room. She leapt onto her bed and covered herself with the blanket.  

Allison was burning inside as a storm of panic suddenly hit her. Her face had turned red as she was fuming with anger. She had the idea that she had no chance with her parents, let alone the society. Next day she woke up feeling heavy but without a soul. She felt that all her spirits had suddenly vanished and that she does not want to stay with her family anymore. She even developed the idea of committing suicide. As she was engrossed in her thoughts, the tiny droplets appeared again but this time those were from her eyes. In deep sorrow and anger, she uttered, “I hate you” to her Ma but immediately felt a twist in her stomach that occurred out of guilt.  She took back her words immediately and thanked God for not letting anyone hear her. Allison went to school as usual with her gang but she was not the same anymore. Earlier in the day, she did try to maintain a happy and charming face as she always does but Li understood that something was wrong with Alli. Meanwhile, in the school, Allison’s gang asked her what was the matter. One of her male friends asked her jokingly, “hey! Why so down, Alli?”, “Are you getting married?” hearing this, Alli burst into anger and left her gang and ran to the edge of a hill. She sat there for hours imagining her life and the death of her aspirations and dreams. After she came back home, her Ma informed her what she already knew, that she was about to be handed over to someone she did not even know. Allison tried hard to control her anger and her tears but failed to stop them. They conveyed the message that her tongue and lips were unable to convey. Allison’s tears surrendered to the words of her Ma and the reasoning that she provided. The guy was rich, he has a well-to-do family, he has fallen for her at first sight that night in the dinner and that he has everything to make her happy. Well, to her Ma, a man’s status, his capabilities and his desires were enough to keep a woman happy. A woman’s aspirations, her dreams and her potentials were just something to be thrown away into the bin.

Finding Courage and Perseverance

Anyways, Allison was married to the ‘ideal’ rich guy some days later that was to mark the start of the next phase of her ordeal. The husband started abusing Allison – physically and emotionally. She gave all her efforts to make things right but failed. Allison wanted to escape from that ‘captive’ but could not do so because the invisible and choking shackles of her daughterly duty and societal norms bound her. Apart from that, fleeing was not a good option else, she would have done that even before the wedding. One morning, Allison woke up to the mark of stain on her face and the unbearable pain and the stain of her blood on the wall that were the results of her ‘affectionate’ and ‘rich’ husband. Allison glared for long on to those bloodstains and suddenly realized something. She immediately went to the storeroom and found painting canvas there. It was revealed that her husband too had some passion for painting but he was busy bashing his wife around and hence did not bother using those. Anyways, Allison scanned the entire room and found everything that she needed but she could not do it in open. She had to paint secretly in the absence of her husband. She gathered the courage and then began the journey of her second life. Allison used to paint everything she observed outside her home’s window and then used to post it on Facebook with an anonymous name. Gradually as days passed, Allison’s work was being recognized but no one knew who the person was. One fateful night when Allison was completely engrossed in painting her imagination, she failed to hear the doorbell ring. Her husband broke in through the door and that woke Allison up from her imagination but she was too late. Watching Allison’s painting, her husband realized his own weakness and that made him even more violent. In order to protect his manhood and superiority, her husband destroyed all her paintings. He shouted, “You do not have the right to paint, you are mine and you do what I say!” That was it. Allison had enough. She thought, “damn family reputation, damn the society”. The next day, she packed her bags and took the remains of her painting and left. Before leaving, she left a note to her husband, which read, “You must have destroyed my paintings but not my imagination,” “It stays with me and you could never destroy it”.

After leaving her husband’s place, she fortunately found a contact of one of her ‘gang’ members, who helped her find a shelter until she managed to work on her own. Her best friend, who also hailed from the same community, supported her in every way she needed to be supported. Allison achieved immense success in painting and was recognized by everyone in the locality. Her parents also came to know about her achievement and that made them feel miserable.  They were equally responsible for the torture she had to bear. Allison however ensured that the reputation of her parents remained intact and never discussed her ordeal with anyone except her best friends. Her husband tried with all his power and money to take Allison captive again but the more he tried, the more she found the strength to move ahead. At the mere age of 15, Allison had suffered almost every pain in the world but that did not stop her from achieving what she had always desired – the freedom to express her ideas and imagination. She had always imagined of a world where men and women were given equal opportunity to speak and do whatever they wanted to do and that is why, despite the torture she was put to, she always spoke her mind. Five years after her escape, Allison established a good name for herself and her painting appealed strongly to all the women who had been through similar situations.

While she was being honored for her contribution to art, the tiny droplets found their way again into Allison’s cheeks through her eyes. Back to the present, those tiny droplets again touched her face but in the form of rain. Allison stood up, went outside the room and drenched herself with rain, relieving her childhood memory. The memory that had both sweet and sour moments, the memory that made her what she is today – independent in the truest sense. She was now free to express her thoughts and listen to the ideas of others as well. Despite receiving such torture, she did not develop any hatred or malignity for other men and that was the independence she achieved.