Sub judice or another kind of domestic violence

Often hearing about domestic violence, Tom decided to visit the subject afresh to find out whether any other act can also be called by the same name. He chose an idle afternoon to get to the bottom of the affair and wrote down a series of questions and his answers below each one of them. He wondered how he can forget Muser who is his inspirational guide. Tom liked to write with pen or pencil and this gave him the satisfaction of emulating Muser, who is a sworn longhand writer.

The first question that got on to the paper was “Which other act or acts can be considered as ‘domestic violence’?

After a little thinking, he came to the conclusion that apart from getting physical, the common form of domestic violence, strangling of free thoughts and expressions, needless comparisons and enforcing likes and dislikes on others  are the other serious forms of that violence which  goes unreported as no punishable laws exist!

The second question, he wanted to answer was, “what are the external indicators for these confrontations?”

He characterised the nature of these violent occurrences as giving raise to voluminous sound “bytes” accompanied by contorting facial muscles. This exercise invariably leaves bitter feelings burning a hole in the minds of those involved and spares neither the initiator nor the receiver.

Tom felt a sense of de ja’ vu after successfully answering his own questions. He sat thinking for few minutes to frame his next set of questions to himself. Feeling like some on appearing for an examination, he was scared to write down a tough question which may not be easy to answer. 

“Which are the potent subjects that might trigger this form of domestic violence”?, was the next question that came to his mind.

He opted for the children or grandchildren in the house as the first choice that seldom fails to deliver, when tweaked a little. Figuratively speaking, the trigger, for a verbal violence, is in the hands of a man or a woman who conveniently selects a wrong moment to point out a fault in the child or grandchild - of being untidy, naughty or unhelpful or haughty. If the discussion on the ‘faults’ stops at an early stage, the tempers will remain under control and instead of that if the man or woman attempts  to bring out behavioural similarities or anomalies within the family of the ‘other speaker’, the outcome is a series of arguments and counter arguments which will finally end in a disastrous conversation. In a similar spirit, arguments, liberally laced with spite, may start about a *–in-law and erupt in a volcano of innuendo.

As he was finishing the above answer, this question popped up: “What is so special about ‘examples’ and ‘comparisons’ and how could it lead to further flare up”?

The game of comparison can be played across a spectrum of generations. The wife may suddenly jump the rails and happily start a verbal documentary on how ‘his close friends’ shoulder responsibilities or shower affection and understanding, at the drop of a porcelain cup or go the extra mile to understand the sufferings of a homemaker. 

The husband tries in vain to bring home the point that “individuals are unique and trying to fit any individual in an equation, for comparison, using chosen set of parameters is arbitrary”. Instead, he stops short of saying, “it would have been better for you to have married in to that family or this family rather than me”.

Though the answer to this question will certainly have a repercussion in his personal life, Tom chose to go ahead by penning his thoughts. May be the mellifluous scratching noise of nib on paper urged him to sail against this domestic danger!Enlarging his list, Tom added faith and disbelief, likes and dislikes, style and disgust as other potent subjects to brew in-house trouble as they behave like North and South poles of magnets or matter and antimatter of cosmos!

The choice of god or guru or method of worship is equally important as a threat perception for the youngsters and non-conformists in the family.The devout and the rest of them in the family take turns to propose and dispose faith in god and need to regular worship. With religion occupying prime slots in the morning TV broadcasts, the devout gets ample chances to guide the errant flock to the salvation centers. Munching on their own problems along with breakfast, the members of errant flock tend to ignore the baptism on the breakfast table. This is the fuel for the fire waiting to be lit, in the devotee’s mind. In this state of high alert, a witty comment intended to be a pun turns sour.

Though these are all individual preferences, the involvement is passionate and devoid of reason. In this galvanised mêlée, passion and reason act similar to like poles; repel each other. Arguments and counter arguments collide like matter and antimatter to annihilate each other! Tom was very pleased with the examples he could come up with.

Tom asked himself, “Will there be a way out of such an argument”?

In this state, even a small talk, on sundry things, has the potential to become another artless war of words. In such a situation, even if one of them wishes to accept the truth in the comparison or wants to bring out the untruth in the argument, a graceful exit has already been closed because of the disastrous conversation. The aggrieved person, upset with the lack of logic in comparisons, decides to walk away in silence to cool the tempers and to attend to the bruised ego.Tom started to explore the basis for these opinion clashes under the question: “what catalyses these chain reactions, which ultimately ends up as a form of domestic violence”?


The deemed infringement on freedom of choice or taste of an individual sets the ball rolling. The conservative middle class elder is often the epicenter for this domestic violence. To this elder anything chic is bad taste and waste of money and never fails to pass a comment on the choice of clothing or food. The youngster is in no mood to understand the effect of this cultural shock on the elder or worry about the dwindling personal bank balance. The youngster feels at ease with the current way of life and hates to be in the bygone era. The contentious issues about food and style leave both in bitterness.

Tom came to the important question “Why and does it suffer a generation gap?”

As people age, likes and dislikes also change but keep raising anachronistic questions like “You liked this then, but not now, why”, “You did it then and why not now?”, or “I like it and why you don’t too?”, “I don’t like it and why you do? Nobody wants to hear these stale reminders and aggressive statements, anymore now. People have become touchy.

This form of domestic violence is not restricted to the older generation in the family. The same type of situation could easily arise among the youngsters themselves. The changed script could be: friends, entertainment, casual approach to life and things or even a hairstyle. Though he wanted to delve deep into this topic, he curbed his enthusiasm fearing over statements.

Tom wondered, “What common thread runs through all these upheavals?”

In all these cases, the milder aggrieved person would be in a fix to say categorically “Yes or No”. The preference to act as an emotional sink overrides the impulse to put an end to the matter there and then.
In these careful acts of retreat, the aggrieved perceives a greater sense of purpose – to keep the pendulum of harmony or whatever is left of it swinging.  May be the aggrieved thinks that the accruing bitterness and its weight on the conscience is a small price to pay for a larger cause!

After rereading his notes, Tom felt emboldened to offer few solutions to manage the outbursts. A problem remains a problem as long as they are fed with dosages of hurt or helplessness or revenge. He chose to make his point with a simple example of garlic and onion. Only garlic leaves a heavy odour, for a long time but both are lachrymatory. These characteristics do not depend on whether they are garden fresh or off the shelf. A brief smile played on his lips, mischievously, when he wrote this comparison.

For the record he detested garlic more than the onions! Likewise, young and old in a family should try to understand and politely disagree with the other view point and become the onion people – cry a little and forget the bother.

He heard the approaching foot falls of Mrs. Tom and hastily closed the notebook on which he was writing. He will reveal the contents to her only after showing it to Muser. He considered the matter sub judice till then.