Strength of a woman

I was feeling all Sylvia plathish and acting wistful like Meena Kumari a bit and spent the afternoon listening to what my mother wrote about her friends and her take on 'strength of a woman'.

Best friend number 1:
She was 8 months younger to my mother and was married to a good catch at that time - A professional working in Bombay, he was handsome and city slick. When the boy came to see her friend (let us call her S) she was made to wear a pink 'city' saree which his sister got with her and her hair style was changed. She was 'approved' and got married. For some years there were stories of S in Bombay, S in Gauhati, S in Patna and the exciting life she was in. She had 3 children by then. At that point of time, my mother was intimated that S was hospitalised due to nervous breakdown and has become totally numb - no emotions, no movement and no interest in any thing. Later on when she visited her, she was better and told my mother that there was nothing to worry. She is moving back to her hometown with kids as the husband is changing cities frequently. This is a plan for children's education. But, her eyes were vacant and hollow. My mother came to know through her father that, S's husband was promiscuous and had married another woman and when confronted, had told S that 'she is not womanly' enough.
I am a childhood friend to her kids and she was a gorgeous woman in a classical sense (big eyes, long straight nose and the works)She never told anybody what happened with her marriage, she worked really hard to bring her kids up, lived most modestly through out her life and died with the secret inside at a young age.

Best friend number 2:
She was my mothers friend from childhood and they loved climbing trees and temple towers together. She was married off at an appropriate age to a respectable family with stable economic status. Years went by without much change and she hit her 40s. My mother heard from some body that her husband had remarried. She was horrified and did not know how to ask her friend. But her friend when they met shared her story thus; "My husband is at fault in this situation, the other woman is young, unmarried and a beautiful woman.Because of my husband, she was thrown out of her house and she lost respect in the village, where will that poor girl go for the fault that both were responsible for? so I told my husband to marry her and bring her home." As a twist in the story, that other woman gave birth to a daughter and died. Mom's friend brought her up as her own and now both of them live together.

Strength to abide by patriarchy and strength to cloak the struggles of the self under patriarchy ..... never the less strength of women then, now and forever...