I meet a bunch of women – Travel Tales

The YHAI in Mysore, is one of my fav stay places! I have been there quite a few times and the staff know me too. This trip when I went there, I got one of the last few beds to sleep. The hostel was jam packed with conference participants.

This conference was some spiritual group for families who have suffered alcohol addicts. So the ladies in my room all had either a husband or son (or maybe someone else) in their family who had been or were still alcohol addicts. For a moment I was a little stunned, it was scary and very serious stuff. I could see that most of these women had been bashed, tormented a lot in their life.

The lady next to me from Delhi told me a sordid tale of how her son married some woman who planned to kill him. She drugged him and made him sign all his property to her and then she would have killed him but some quirk of fate it was avoided. Scary!

The lady on the other side was very surprised by me when she realised I was just travelling on my own. She asked me lot of questions about how I manage, what happens if I got into trouble etc.. She wanted her daughters to be like me, capable of doing everything on their own. She had an alcoholic husband and faced very difficult times, but now with the help of this organization he was better and the family was seeing a better time! Having spent her youth with an aged husband with alcohol addiction she was now getting her life back. She was learning English and looking at other skills she could gain.

Very scary to start with it was an unique encounter for me and for those women too! After the preliminary misgivings had passed they were actually like any other women I knew. Its endearing how even after really nightmare situations these women could retain happiness, humanity and a homliness in their lives!