much newsprint and television time has been devoted to rahul mahajan and his battered wife dimpy the new mrs mahajan recently alleged domestic violence and walked out of her husbands house only to be returned dutifully to him by none other than her own father i am a middleclass girl said dimpy at a press conference i want to give my marriage another shot her parents of course were extremely proud of their daughters decision to go back unmindful of the fact that the soninlaw had thrashed her hard enough to leave ugly bruises and these are just superficial wounds that their daughter will be emotionally scarred for life does not seem to be paramount for the gangulys who are just relieved to see her back where she belongsstay on thats richit isnt unusual for parents in india to urge their daughters to stick around in abusive relationships and the practice is prevalent among the upper classes more than anywhere else sunday is no different from monday rues dimple vakharia 38 as she supervises the cook in her kitchen which overlooks a wellmanicured garden in a surati suburb except for second saturdays when he goes to meet his spiritual guru near the ahmedabad highway he also has sex with female sex workers in the vicinity he told me once her eyes are limpid pools fraught with helplessness and you wonder where life went wrong for this beautiful bright girl dimple belongs to the gujarati khatri community and was married at 20 to a suitable boy a complete stranger her inlaws are very rich and stalwarts of the community she has all the luxuries in the world says her father kishore vakharia the going gets tough with her husband sometimes but then all marriages have problems he casually assures usnow a mother of four dimple finds it tough to get a grip on life the physical abuse started from the first night itself but before i could figure out where my marriage was going i was pregnant and my parents advised me to stay back they said once the child is born all couples settle down my motherinlaw is sweet but helpless my husband says i am deranged maybe the problem really is with me she trails offshamsah sonawalla a psychiatrist at mumbais jaslok hospital says this is a typical reaction the victim feels so guiltridden that she believes she must be at faulti n such cases it becomes extremely tough to convince the woman that the abuse physical emotional social is not something she brought upon herself conspiracy of silenceparents seem to have their own reasons to urge their daughters to stick around in a bad marriage societal shame is the foremost the parents of sahana majumdar a doctor in kolkata urged her to stick on with her abusive alcoholic doctor husband for the sake of her daughter and also their position in society with nobody else to turn to sahana gave up the idea of divorce and