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Karur, 1975
 During 1975, I was Sub-Collector at Karur. One night, as I was returning from an official engagement from Tiruchi around midnight, I saw about a hundred men waiting on the verandah of the Sub-Collector’s bungalow. There was also a well-dressed young Muslim woman with them who seemed to be sobbing.
Everyone rushed towards my jeep and started narrating the happenings of the day. It appeared that this young woman was found crying at the Karur bus terminus, abandoned by her husband (male escort). A crowd had gathered around her. Since she could not speak Tamil, it was not possible for people to communicate with her and know the cause of her distress. Eventually, they had decided to bring her to the Sub-Collector, thinking that I would be able to help her.
My investigation revealed the following - there was a village called Pallapatti near Kulithalai about 40 kms. from Karur. The men of this village like the Chettiars and Marwaris, went to different parts of the country for trading. However, most of them were occupied in money–lending. Most of the Pallapatti menfolk did business in Surat. They usually stayed in Surat for a period of three to six months or even longer.
While there, they made various types of live-in arrangements with women. Some of them simply had casual sexual relationships. Others had a second wife in Surat with whom they cohabited whenever they were in the city. A third group entered into a purely contractual marriage which just lasted for a short period of three to six months. In the Islamic personal law, there is scope for a short contractual marriage called ‘Mutha marriage’. The Mutha marriage I found, was the cheapest method of entering into a relationship by a Pallapatti merchant to his great advantage.
He will enter into a marriage contract with a young Muslim woman and obtain the social sanction from the local community to enjoy a sexual relationship which costs him nothing (he will have to pay through his nose if he has to go to a commercial sex worker). In addition, since she is his so called wife even if for a short duration, she will cook his food, wash and iron his clothes, clean his house and perform all other household chores just for the sake of getting two meals a day and a few clothes (or a small amount of money which was paid to her or her relatives).
Marriage automatically came to an end at the expiry of the contract period. The women have no hold on the man. Sometimes she is pregnant at the end of the contract period but she is not entitled to seek any relief for herself or her child. In this type of notional marriage, the woman is fully exploited while the man leads a respectable life. He is only having a second or temporary wife while being away from his home and is not a debauch or indulging in casual sex. In this way he also manages by and large, to protect himself from venereal diseases as they choose only good girls from poor but respectable families. Most of these families accept these contracts in the hope that they would last and become permanent in the long run.
This young woman, Yasmin (assumed name), was from Surat. There she came across a young man called Abdullah (assumed name) from Pallapatti. He married her in Surat. They lived happily for six months, at the end of which Abdullah wanted to come back to Tamilnadu and Pallapatti to visit his family.
Yasmin did not wish to be left alone and insisted on joining him. He agreed and they travelled together as far as Karur. After arriving at Karur, they stayed in Pushpa Lodge (assumed name) near the bus stop for four days, in great bliss. They enjoyed each other’s company, had biryani and chicken 65 (a local fried chicken dish of Tamilnadu) to eat and generally vowed to stay together forever. At the end of the fourth day, Abdullah convinced Yasmin that he would go to his village and inform his people about their marriage and bring his parents and elders to fetch her with due
honour.
Having thus been left alone, Yasmin waited for three days, at the end of which, the lodge owner was not prepared to wait any longer and had turned her out for non-payment of bills. In these circumstances, she was found at the bus stand by the kind people of Karur town.
I had earlier visited Pallapatti and found the people quite different from those I found in other parts of Tamilnadu. Women were kept in ‘Purdah’ (veil) which is unusual for Tamilnadu. They were not allowed any mobility, any school education and the only place they could go to was a local ‘Madrasa’ (a religious school). No one had ever seen Pallapatti women. No officials were allowed inside the village and meeting, if any, with the village headman, etc. took place in a building located at the entrance of the village. I being a woman officer, was able to gain entry into the village and meet women inside the Madrasa. The Pallapatti men still thought that they belonged to ‘Arabia’, from where their ancestors were supposed to have come as traders (seems quite likely). They considered themselves different from other Tamil Muslims and lead a secluded and exclusive existence. They tried their best to protect their women from the big, bad world outside Pallapatti. They were the type of people who would not mind indulging in honour-killing if there was a case of adultery.
They would not mind indulging in all kinds of relationships with women themselves but they would not allow their own women even to speak to an outsider. Not only did they have a poor opinion of all women, they also felt that women of Surat were to be used and discarded. And they had no regrets about their own way of life.
The way Yasmin was left on the roadside, where anything could have happened to her, was very inhuman. She could have fallen into wrong hands, she could have been kidnapped, murdered or raped. She could have even landed inside a brothel. I felt that it was high time to put a stop to this type of nonsense. I consulted my Assistant Superintendent of Police and it was felt that the police would have to go to the village and make an arrest on the same night itself, as by morning the matter would have been published in most of the local newspapers and the party would get alerted and disappear from the village. While I waited patiently, a police party of about two hundred men, headed by the ASP himself, left for the village to arrest
Abullah.
Form the circumstances of the case, we had a hypothesis that possibly Abdullah and Yasmin were genuinely in love and cared for each other. However, when Abdullah went to his village, his people might have detained him there. Most probably, he already had a wife and a few children which would have further complicated the situation. Local leaders might think that Surat women may be all right for a temporary marriage but they were not good enough to be given a place in Pallapatti with other, so called, pure-bred women of Arabian stock.
By four in the morning, the police party returned with Abdullah. He confessed having an earlier wife. He also confessed being in love with Yasmin and being detained by his father and uncles in the village so he could not come back to fetch Yasmin. He was willing to marry Yasmin as per the local customs and maintain her as his second wife as per the Muslim personal law. Meanwhile, his family also arrived and they agreed to have a compromise and conduct a proper wedding for Abdullah and Yasmin with the consent of his first wife. Having settled all this in the course of one night, I went to bed peacefully in the wee hours of the morning.
Next day the wedding took place in the ‘Jama Masjid’, the big mosque of Karur, under the supervision of important Muslim gentry and was conducted by the Qazi of Karur town. A proper contract with a substantial ‘Meher’ amount (money to be paid in case of a divorce as per the Muslim law) was drawn up and a copy of it was deposited in the office of the Sub-Collector. A number of social organisations chipped in to provide adequate dowry for the bride. Both the bride and the groom received substantial amount of gifts from important personalities and local leaders who attended their wedding.
I was transferred out of Karur in 1976. I have not heard of this couple since then and I hope that no news is good news and hopefully they are still together.
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