Mumbai, Meri Jaan

It was an arranged marriage. I do not remember why I had agreed to it. I was married and the boy lived in a chawl. This chawl was not a building. It had a ground floor and a central courtyard. The bikes were parked in the courtyard. People threw their litter there. Clothes were dried there and washed there too. Children were given their bath in the tub outside. The roof was not high but people made like an attic for sleeping quarters. There was a room followed by a kitchen and that was the house. The toilets were common and at the end of the chawl. They were almost always filthy.The bath area was in the kitchen itself. In the night, people used that area to go to the loo. There was one single bed in the room with an old dirty bed sheet and even dirtier pillow. The place had the stink of urine and rotting food. Everyone s house smelt like that or so I thought. The people also avoided using the toilet unless absolutely required. There was a shortage of water. So every house had a drum full of water stored. One had to carry a small bucket of water to use the toilet. There was no soap to wash hands. You used some soap strip lying near the toilets.
The men all went to the toilets with their towels wrapped around them. I was always scared to go that side. Most of them smoked outside and went in after the last puff and without crushing the stub. No one wore chappals or any footwear to these toilets or in the house.

When I had married, I had lofty dreams. I wanted to change the world. I wanted to transform my husband's home. I thought everyone likes cleanliness. I thought everyone will appreciate a good change. I wanted to start with my new marital home. The mother in law thought I had no business to be there. The sister in law had her own gang of loyalists in the chawl. They had been her friends for years. No one wanted a rich brat like me to tell them what to do. They even told me that if you clean, people will think you are a show off. So if you want to be a part of them, you have to live like them. I thought I will talk to the children living there. They are school going and would have a sense of personal hygiene. Everything I uttered was carried back to parents and came back to me in various cynical statements. The young teen boys were into smoking and gutka. They had given up studies. Every afternoon and late night, they played in the courtyard. Since I was the newest entrant, I was leched at the most. The men in the family were never around as they were busy making a living. I saw them only at meal times where they ate before me. I had to eat with sister in law and then clean up all the vessels. The attic bedroom belonged to her. The kitchen was ours and my in laws slept in the only room we had. The husband had no time to talk or listen to me. He had married me and now it was up to me to adjust. There was nothing of the family which we had met earlier for the marriage proposal. May be I had not met them as I have no memory of anything.
How can I make this place livable? Everything happened the way the in laws dictated including the daily menu. They did not want any cleaning or rearranging of things in the house. They said it was all their hard earned wealth/things and I had no business of calling it old or useless.I knew I was rich at my parents' house and had lived a luxurious life. But somehow no one from my family was around or ever met me. I was stuck and I was not allowed to even go out. I definitely had no money with me.

While I was crying about my helplessness, I heard my husband waking me up.
Thank God, it was only a bad dream. What is bad dream for me, is a reality for so many women.