This Domestic Violence Survivor Is Now A Proud Agro Entrepreneur
Dulourin Markam, 35, got married to Nirmal way back, when she was 16. The new bride came to Chhattisgarh’s Kaspur village along with her groom to start life in her marital home. While life moved on, Dulourin became mother to four children in succession, but soon found herself deep in the throes of family responsibilities when her husband became addicted to liquor. Owing to the addiction, Nirmal was not in a position to work to earn a living. Often, in an inebriated state, he would beat his wife continuously and then burst out into laughter. She would sob and plead for mercy to be spared the beating.
Such instances are not entirely unheard of in certain parts of the country, and for Nirmal, it was his dwindling mental health that was the culprit. Symptoms began to show in early 2010, and were so visible that neighbours started calling him “mad”. “I have to keep my husband tied with chains otherwise he would have kept beating me due to his mental illness. I do not have a choice,” she shares. With the help of local medical practitioners, he did show signs of improvement and subsequently, some stability set in, but things took a turn for the worse in 2016. And the beatings did not cease.