My mother-in-law was convinced I could not give birth to a son because my long hair had taken away the family’s luck. She forced me to shave my head in the courtyard in front of everyone, then threw me out in rags, declaring that only when my head was “cleansed of sin” could her son marry another woman.
Part One – The Fortune in My Hair
My name is Suman. I was married into the house in Govardhan, Mathura, when I was twenty two.
It was not a love marriage. In our side, girls from Hathras do not do love marriage. My father had seen the boy at a mandi. Ramesh. He had a small transport business, two second hand trucks, a pucca house with a courtyard, and a mother who was known to be very religious. Kamla Devi. Everyone in the village called her Kamla Mausi.
For the first year, everything was tolerable. I woke at five, made chai, swept the aangan, made rotis that puffed properly. My hair was very long at that time. My mother used to say it was my only jewellery. It was below my waist, thick, black, with a natural wave. I used to oil it every Sunday and make one long choti. Ramesh liked it. He would sometimes say, you look like those heroines in old films.
The problem started when I did not become pregnant.
After one year, Kamla Mausi took me to the government hospital lady doctor. The doctor checked and said everything is normal, just wait, stress kam karo. But Kamla Mausi did not believe in stress. She believed in dosh.
She started taking me to one tantrik baba in Barsana, then to another mataji in Vrindavan who gave me ash to eat with milk. I ate it. I drank bitter kadas. I wore a copper coin tied with black thread around my waist for six months. Still nothing.
Then the taunts started in full volume. Not just inside the house. Outside also. When I went to fill water from the handpump, the women would say, “Suman, three years ho gaye, godh bharai kab kara rahi hai?” In our village, a woman without a child is like a field without water. People think she is cursed.
Ramesh also changed. He did not beat me. He just stopped talking. He would come late, eat his food watching his phone, and sleep turning his face to the wall. Once I asked, shall we both go to Agra for proper check up? He said, “My mother says the fault is in you. Your hair is too long. You wash it on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which is not allowed for married women. You are attracting evil eye.”
I thought he was joking. He was not.
Last year in December, a new pandit came to our village. He was from Karoli. He had a big tilak and he shouted while talking. Kamla Mausi called him to our house for grah shanti. He looked at my horoscope, which I never believed in, then he looked at me, then he looked at my hair which was open because I was drying it after bath.
He said, “This bahu’s hair is the problem. Her hair is sucking all the good fortune of the family. The kesh is so long, it is like a witch’s broom. The pitra devta cannot enter the house because her hair blocks the door. That is why there is no son. The hair has to go. Head has to be made clean. Then only devta will bless.”
I was standing there with a towel in my hand. I laughed. I could not help it. I said, “Pandit ji, what nonsense is this?”
Kamla Mausi did not laugh. Her eyes became small. She touched Pandit ji’s feet and said, you have found the root cause. I knew it. This girl with city style hair was unlucky from start.
From that day, she started calling me chudail. She said my hair is full of sin.
Part Two – The Courtyard
It was decided on a Tuesday. Tuesday is considered good for cutting away bad things in our side.
Kamla Mausi called her brother, her two sisters, Ramesh’s bua, and four neighbour aunties. She told them, we will finally clean the house of bad luck. The new bahu for Ramesh will come only after this one is purified and thrown out.
I was in the kitchen, kneading dough, when she called me. “Suman, come to aangan.”
I came. In the middle of the courtyard, there was a low wooden stool, the one we use to wash clothes. On the floor she had spread an old newspaper. In her hand she had a shining new ustra, the kind the naai uses to shave heads of widows and newborns. Next to her stood our neighbour’s son, a fifteen year old boy who works at a salon in town.
She said loudly so everyone could hear, “Suman, your long hair has eaten our family’s fortune for three years. Because of you, my son has no vaaris. I have tolerated you. Now pandit ji has said head must be clean. Only then sin will go. Only then my son can marry again.”
Ramesh was standing near the cattle room. I looked at him. I thought he would say, Maa, enough. He looked down at his slippers. He said nothing.
The aunties started murmuring. One said, “Kamla, is this necessary?”
Kamla Mausi shouted, “It is necessary. This girl has done black magic with her hair.”
She pulled my arm. I did not fight. What is the use of fighting when five women and your husband are watching and nobody will save you? She pushed me onto the stool. The boy came forward.
She said, “Hold her.”
Two aunties held my shoulders. Not tightly, but enough to say they were with her.
The ustra was cold. The boy started from the front. My long hair, which my mother had combed for twenty years, which I had oiled with amla, fell down. It did not fall like in films, one smooth cut. It fell in ugly clumps. Black clumps on newspaper, on cow dung floor, on my feet. When half my head was shorn, Kamla Mausi took the ustra from his hand and she herself shaved the rest, roughly, pulling my skin. Blood came out at two places near my ear. Nobody said stop.
When it was done, my head was completely bald, with small cuts, shining with sweat. I looked like a different person. I touched my head and my hand shook.
Then Kamla Mausi brought a torn petticoat and blouse, old clothes used for wiping floor, and said, change into this. Your good clothes are also full of dosh. I changed behind the cattle, while everyone watched my shadow.
After that she took a lota of water mixed with haldi and threw it on me, as if throwing after a funeral. She said, “Now you go. Go from my house. Your head is clean of sin. Only now my son can marry another woman who will give us a son. Take your torn clothes and go to your parents, if they will accept a bald daughter.”
I did not shout. I did not abuse. I had no hair left to hide my face. I took a small polythene bag where I kept my Aadhaar card and a ten rupee note. I walked out of the gate, bald, in torn clothes, with clumps of my hair still stuck to my blouse. The children in the lane followed me, laughing. The women looked away.
What she did not know, what none of them in that courtyard knew while they watched my hair fall in clumps on the cow dung floor and laughed about my sin being cleaned, was that my younger brother had visited me two days earlier and given me his old phone with the video camera switched on, hidden inside the grain basket in the corner of the aangan, which recorded every second of the shaving, and just one hour before that, when she thought I was crying alone in the kitchen, she had sat beside me and confessed in a clear, proud voice, laughing, that for three long years she had been crushing Mala-D birth control tablets and mixing the powder into my dal and sabzi every single day, so that I would never conceive, because a daughter-in-law who reads too many books should not be allowed to become a mother until she learns to be obedient.
Part Three – The Quiet Leaving
I walked to the bus stand like that. Bald, bleeding, in torn clothes. A lady gave me her dupatta to cover my head. I took a bus to Hathras. My mother opened the door and fainted.
For three days I did not speak. My father, who is a retired masterji, did not ask what happened. He just sat near my feet and oiled my cuts with coconut oil, like he did when I was small. My brother, Anil, took that phone and copied the video into three pen drives. He said, “Didi, we will go to police now.”
I said, “No. Not now.”
I had learned one thing in three years in that house. If you shout when you are weak, nobody listens. They call you mad. You have to wait.
First, I went to the lady doctor in Hathras, Dr. Saxena. I told her everything. She did not look surprised. She said, “Beta, many saas do this. Give me blood sample.”
The blood report came after five days. High level of levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol, consistent with chronic oral contraceptive ingestion without prescription. She wrote it on her letterhead, with date, with signature, and said, “If you had come earlier, I could have saved you three years of shame.”
Second, I went to the mahila thana with my father. Not to file FIR immediately. I just gave an application, got a stamped receiving, kept it safe.
Third, I went to a lawyer in Mathura, a woman lawyer named Sunita Sharma. She watched the full twenty three minute video, where Kamla Devi is clearly seen shaving my head, calling me chudail, declaring she will get her son married again, and then the second clip from kitchen where she says, “I have been mixing medicine for three years, you think you are smart? I will not let you have a child.” Sunita madam said, “Suman, this is not just cruelty. This is 498A, 323, 504, 506, and also causing hurt by poison. And as per new law, this video is primary evidence.”
I told her, “Madam, I don’t want to file now. She is preparing for her son’s new wedding. Let her prepare.”
Sunita madam smiled for the first time. She understood.
I stayed in Hathras for two months. My hair started growing. Small, prickly hair, like a boy’s. My mother cried every time she saw it. I started working in my father’s old school as a helper, teaching small children ABCD for two thousand rupees. I did not cover my head. I let everyone see. Let them ask.
People asked. I told them, my saas shaved my head because my hair ate their good fortune. The women laughed first, then became quiet. Because every woman in that area knew some story like mine, just with less hair cutting.
Part Four – The New Wedding Preparations
News travels fast in villages, faster than bus.
Through my cousin who lives in Govardhan, we got to know that exactly three months after throwing me out, Kamla Mausi had fixed Ramesh’s second marriage. A girl from Kosi, whose father had a hardware shop, who was ready to give a motorcycle and fifty thousand cash. No questions asked about first wife. They told everyone that first bahu ran away with someone because she was characterless.
They started preparing. New paint on house. New curtains. Halwai booked for 300 people. Invitation cards printed with Ramesh Weds Pooja. My name was not mentioned, as if I had never existed.
Kamla Mausi was going door to door distributing laddoos and saying, “Finally, after cleaning the sin, devta has blessed us. Now we will have grandson. The old bald chudail is gone.”
Ramesh did not call me once. Not to ask if I am alive, not to ask if I need divorce. In his mind, throwing me in torn clothes was divorce enough.
My father wanted to go and fight. I stopped him. I said, “Papa, let the halwai make laddoos. Let the cards be distributed. The more people they call, the more people will watch what happens next.”
On the 10th of May, one day before the second wedding, Sunita madam sent a legal notice by registered post and by WhatsApp to Ramesh, to Kamla Devi, and to the girl’s father in Kosi. Along with notice, she attached a 2 minute edited clip of the kitchen confession, not the full shaving video yet, and the medical report.
The girl’s father in Kosi called my father within two hours, shouting, “Masterji, what is this? You said your daughter left? You did not say your samdhan was feeding her birth control tablets?”
By evening, the wedding was cancelled from girl’s side. They returned the motorcycle advance.
Kamla Mausi thought it was my father doing blackmail. She came to Hathras with her brother, shouting outside our house, “Your daughter is trying to ruin my son’s second marriage because she is jealous. She is characterless, that is why we threw her.”
That was her mistake. She shouted in front of our entire mohalla.
Part Five – The Video That Everyone Saw
Next morning, Sunita madam, with permission from the women’s commission, released the full video.
Not on TV. On the village WhatsApp groups. On the Govardhan market association group where Ramesh’s transport business got orders. On the Facebook page of Mathura news.
Twenty three minutes. Clear face. Clear voice. Kamla Devi holding ustra. Me sitting bald, blood on ear. Her voice saying, “Now my son can marry another woman.” And then second part, her voice in kitchen, “I have been mixing Mala-D for three years in your food, you thought you will become mother? I will teach you.”
In our villages, people can tolerate a man leaving his wife. They cannot tolerate a mother-in-law feeding medicine secretly. Because every mother has fed her daughter-in-law with her own hands. It felt like poison in their own kitchen.
By afternoon, the video had 40,000 views in Mathura district. The relatives who had sat in courtyard and held my shoulders started calling my father and saying, “Masterji, we did not know she was mixing tablets. We thought it was just about hair.”
The sarpanch of Govardhan called Kamla Devi and Ramesh to panchayat. They did not go. Police went to their house instead.
An FIR was registered. Under Section 85 of BNS, which is cruelty, and Section 123, causing hurt by poison, and other sections. Ramesh and Kamla Devi were called to thana. They were not arrested immediately because Sunita madam had requested time for mediation, but their names came in newspaper. Mathura Samachar printed small headline: Saas accused of shaving bahu’s head and feeding contraceptive pills for three years to prevent heir.
Ramesh’s transport business suffered. Two drivers left. The shop owner who gave him contract said, “We don’t give work to families where such videos come.”
After fifteen days, Kamla Mausi came to our house again. This time not shouting. She came with Ramesh, both with heads down. My head now had small hair, about an inch long. I was wearing a proper salwar, not torn clothes.
She fell at my father’s feet. She said, “Masterji, forgive. The video has ruined us. Village is not talking to us.”
My father looked at me. He did not say anything. It was my decision.
I said, “Kamla Mausi, you said my hair sucked your good fortune. My hair is gone. Now tell me, where is your good fortune? Your son’s second wedding is cancelled, your business is down, your relatives are not taking your calls. Who sucked whose fortune?”
She cried. Real crying, not drama.
I said, “I will not take back FIR. But I will not ask for revenge also. I will ask for my rights.”
Sunita madam had already prepared a settlement deed.
One, immediate divorce by mutual consent, with permanent alimony of Rs 15 lakhs to be paid from sale of one truck, because I had worked for free in their house and business for three years.
Two, Kamla Devi would give written apology in front of panchayat, accepting that she forcibly shaved my head and mixed pills, and that there was no fault in me.
Three, Ramesh would give in writing that I was of good character, to clear my name in village.
They signed. They had no option. The video was evidence that would have sent them to jail for three to five years. They chose to sign.
Last week, the panchayat happened. Same courtyard where my hair was shaved. Same stool was there, but empty. Kamla Devi stood, baldness is not contagious, but shame is, and she read apology. The same aunties who held my shoulders now held her elbows because she was shaking.
I did not go to watch. My brother went and recorded it, this time openly.
Today my hair is two inches long. I keep it short now. I like it. When wind blows, I feel air on my scalp directly, like truth touching skin without any filter.
I have joined a course in Agra, ANM nursing course. I want to become a nurse who tells other bahus what Mala-D looks like when crushed, how it smells bitter in dal. I want to tell them, if your saas says your hair eats fortune, ask her to show her bank passbook. Fortune is not in hair. Fortune is in kindness.
Ramesh still has not married again. I heard he now keeps his head also shaved, not because of pandit, but because he says he feels too hot. People in Govardhan say, like mother, like son.
I have not forgiven fully. Forgiveness is big word in Indian families, used mostly to tell women to forget. I have not forgotten. But I have reclaimed. My Aadhaar, my self-respect, my right to say I am not barren, I was poisoned. And that is enough for now.
When my mother combs my short hair with her small comb, she says, “Suman, your hair will grow again, beta, longer than before.” I smile and say, “Let it grow, Maa, but not too long that someone again thinks it can suck away their fortune. Keep it short enough that it stays mine.”
