5 Stitches

By the end of 2009 my life was in shambles. I still lived at Asthamay, after all it that was my only home, but Bala had started a deliberate campaign of terror against me and i did not feel safe anymore. I told him that I wanted out and i expected to recover the money i had spent. At the beginning he seemed to agree, but he quickly changed his mind and became very hostile. He finally told me: "Everything is mine. You are nothing here. I am Indian, you are a useless foreigner. You will run away in tears."  It seems melodramatic, but that is the way things are done here. Lots of drama, bullying and intimidation.

I woke up every morning wondering how I would make it through the day without reacting to his threats. His plan was simple and effective. He started with verbal abuses and hostility towards me. The guest house was full during the holiday season and Bala started the day by insulting me in front of the guests and the staff. For no particular reasons, he would shout insults at me, brake glasses, throw chairs and blame me for it. In fact, he blamed me for having to be violent. I caused it.

When one of the staff lost the key of one of our two scooters, Bala decided to apply collective punishment. He slashed the tires of both scooter and went away for a few days taking with him the only key left. I had to spend the money to have the tires replaced and the locks changed.

At whim, he disconnected the electricity in my room, playing God with the electrical panel. He cut the phone line so I would not have internet access in my room ("All you are good at is talking to your friends. But now you will no friends".) When i call the telephone repair man, he threatened him with severe consequences if he helped me ("One phone call to my friends at the police station and your job is gone".)

The staff at Asthamay, kids who had worked there for years and knew me, were in shock. As soon as Bala would go out they'd come to me and ask me what was wrong with him. They saw what was going on and understood that Bala was acting his plan to get rid of me. We all waited for Bala to go out to breathe freely and without harassment.

But things were going from bad to worse. Bala was getting more impatient for me to run away in fear of him. One night he came home drunk and angry at me. He threw me out of the house, locked the front door, told the security guard to make sure I’d stay out and then went back to his party. I found a ladder and managed to climb into my first floor bedroom. I locked the doors and windows and pushed the furniture against the only window I could not lock and started calling my friends to let them know what was going on. Bala came back after a few hours and banged on my door. Shouting that I would have to face the consequences, he tried to break the locks with a hammer, he could not break them. “Open the door, I’ll count until 10. If you don’t open you will be very sorry”. I ran with a stick in my hand to each of the windows he was trying to break. Finally, he managed to brake into my room by climbing the wall. He looked like a mad man, with a hammer in his hand. I tried not to talk to him, or aggravate him. He sat down. “Now you have done it. I will have you deported from this country. This is my place; I can do what I want”. I managed to call some of his friends and asked them to come over and talk to him. They convinced him to go outside.

I could not lock my room because that made him even more mad, so I slept with a stick beside my bed. One night he came into my room and woke up in fear. He was crying, apologizing, he did not mean to hurt and he had a gift for me, a saree he had bought to show me how much he cared.

But that also was part of his plan. If I had not run away yet under the pressure, maybe he could convince in a nice way to go. By then, I had already contacted a lawyer and I was trying to figure out my legal options.

And Bala was getting more and more violent and unpredictable. One late night in March he was angry at me because the kitchen was not properly clean. When I went into my room I found out that as punishment for that he had cut – yet again – the power supply to my room. Then I really go mad. I run back down the stairs of my room. He watching tv. I slipped in the dark outside the kitchen window and my hand slammed against the window pane. Blood everywhere.

Bala kept on waching tv. The staff came running as they heard the glass breaking. I really did not feel any pain. It was mostly shock. The kids insisted to take to the hospital.  These 5 stitches are the good work of the doctor that was asleep when i arrived at the local hospital.