Please mind the gap

On the no man’s land where love ends and acrimony begins, stands the divorce lawyer. Privy to all the dysfunctions entailed in the reality of happily ever-afters, these professionals help separate the financial threads amid emotional distress and drama. Even though divorce rates in India are among the lowest in the world, it is a fast-growing niche. In Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Chennai, leading divorce lawyers are seeing the number of clients almost doubling every year. BLink meets four of them to hear the stories they have to tell. Oh, and hey, Happy Valentine’s Day!

Mumbai

“We are not vibing”

Vandana Shah was thrown out of her husband’s home with the clothes on her back and ₹750 in the bank account. Over the next few years, she fought an extended divorce battle. By year three of the litigation, she began to notice discrepancies and lapses creep into her lawyer’s work. She pointed one out, to which her lawyer said, “Well, I’m the lawyer here, not you.” So Shah decided she’d just be a lawyer. She enrolled for a degree, and though it took much longer because she had to earn a living as well as run around for her divorce, she kept at it and eventually cleared the Bar examination. Today, she is one of Mumbai’s leading divorce lawyers.

“A lot of people come to me and tell me they were unhappy from day one of their marriage. I find that rather impossible. Usually, I think love changes in about year four or five of the marriage. The kids have often arrived by then and priorities change. The difficult part of marriage, in a way, is negotiating this new normal. Roughly, about halfway down the marriage is when love starts ending,” says Shah.

Chatty and sharp-witted, there are no short conversations with Shah. Even as she was enduring her own prolonged court case (the fictionalised account of which, The Ex-Files, was published by Penguin in December), Shah set up a support group for people grappling with the end of their marriages. This, she says, helps her stay empathetic and non-judgemental about people and their problems. Yet, Shah is still shocked by the amount of abuse some people are willing to take, simply because getting out of a marriage is so fraught with uncertainty and societal criticism.

“A friend’s sister, for example, had what we all thought was the ultimate love marriage. She was very bright, a topper in academics, and we all thought he was a super romantic guy. But soon after the wedding, he turned abusive. So much so that not only would he bring his girlfriends home, he would ask her to cook for them! She stayed in this marriage for 25 years, even though halfway through she started working and was earning ₹5 lakh a month. Finally, when he dislodged her eye socket, her sister and brother-in-law urged her to leave him. I had reconnected with her on Facebook by then and told her that the law and the police were on her side. It’s amazing how much she was willing to live with and to what end!” she says.

The other phenomenon Shah observes is among recently married 20-somethings. They approach her with all kinds of trivial reasons for divorce. One 24-year-old boy came to her office and said he wants to divorce his wife of two years because “we are not vibing”. “I was thinking, well, that’s not going to be enough for a brief,” she says.

Shah has a checklist for people who first approach her, especially women. The first question is, are you financially stable? If you aren’t, you are going to have to go crawling back, so think hard about it. The second question is if the kids are on your side. The third, and very significant query, is whether you feel you have the strength and the courage to take on society’s backlash. If the answers to these questions are in the negative, her advice is to separate and work out a financial arrangement. If not, she asks to proceed with the divorce, and try and keep it simple and amicable.

Shah has recorded a significant increase in the number of divorces. In 2001, when she spent time in courts chasing her own divorce, there were about 30 matters (parts of a case) a day. In 2015, that number is 80 — a near 300 per cent jump. More men initiate divorce proceedings, in Shah’s experience, since they largely control the purse strings and society does not judge them too poorly, unlike women.

In Mumbai’s melting pot, Shah also observes some regional tendencies. Gujaratis, she says, are least likely to get divorced — “They are very business-like about marriage.” Increasingly, she sees a lot of south Indians heading for the family courts. This is especially true in the demographic that works at IT companies, travels abroad often and for extended periods. They have the financial independence for it and are not hesitant to exercise the option of divorce. Among Punjabis, it often comes down to money. Living in joint families and troubles with the mother-in-law are common triggers for divorce in this community.

Overall though, as more women find financial freedom, the less likely they are to stay in a troubled marriage. “Validation — both intellectual and physical — is very important for women. Going to office is a validation. The way you look and the way you interact with co-workers and business associates is a validation. You feel good about yourself — appreciated and desired. Then you come back home to a man and his mum, who are only critical of you. Women are saying I’m done with this bullshit, I’m getting out of here,” Shah says.

Despite all this, India is still a long way off from notching Western divorce rates of 50 per cent. As long as our marriage mantra is ‘kindly adjust’, it’ll last. Shah herself gets trolled on social media, and is often told off for ‘encouraging’ divorce. Divorce was a game changer for her — it changed the entire course of her life, and has given her a new mission — to remove the stigma associated with it. But despite the bitterness of her own divorce and all the dysfunctional marriages she is privy to, Shah isn’t disillusioned about the institution. In fact, she’ll soon give it a second chance.

Kolkata

“Marital life is short, marital strife is long”

With a disarming chuckle, 84-year-old Sambhu Nath Mukerjee claims that age has not affected his alacrity. The senior lawyer still likes going to court every day, but he admits that his real intent is often only to “meet old friends and make some new ones”. Such luxuries, he insists, are usually available only to those in the legal profession. “A doctor, for instance, cannot avoid his patients. A lawyer, on the other hand, can certainly choose to avoid his clients.” Mukerjee, an authority in many aspects of divorce law, seems amused by the whimsy of his comparison. He continues, “If you want to be cured, you are expected to tell your doctor the truth. You’ll find that in matters of matrimony, truth and untruths always come mixed together.”

It was in 1953 that Mukerjee had passed out of Calcutta University with an LLB degree. Though the octogenarian’s observations come laced with an endearing levity, it is hard to discount the substance of their informed wisdom. In a career that has spanned over half a century, Mukerjee has seen himself involved in the divorce proceedings of Kolkata’s “superstars, its paperwallahs,” its rich and its powerful. Too discreet to disclose particulars, he masterfully deflects further prodding with a historical anecdote. In 1956, Mukerjee’s colleague had returned from a trip to the Soviet Union with a startling discovery. “This senior lawyer had found himself in a Russian court of law one day. He saw a young couple sitting there, talking peacefully. They were there to get their official decree of separation. Without any bickering, they came to court, got their decree and left quietly. At that time, this was unthinkable in India.”

The Marriage Laws (Amendment) Act of 1976 finally made divorce by mutual consent a possibility for India’s many irreconcilable marriages. While Mukerjee was unreservedly in favour of such a move, he feels that there is still much that can be done in order to make divorce laws and litigation less complicated. “A delay in the conclusion of matrimonial cases in India remains a very difficult subject. People start litigation at the age of 35 and by the time they have moved from one court to another, they find that they are suddenly 55 and still without a divorce. Marital life is very short, but thanks to judicial delays, marital strife lengthens,” he says.

When asked to pick the most substantial change he had witnessed during his years as a divorce lawyer, Mukerjee didn’t have to think hard. The answer, he said, was obvious. “In the ’60s, women were petrified of going through a divorce. Today, that stigma doesn’t exist as much. I know of people who have been divorced four to five times. We live in a changed society. The atmosphere is different.” The lawyer’s thoughts are interrupted by a literary reference he thinks is pertinent. “In one of his novels, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay had written that before leaving to get married, a boy tells his mother, ‘Ma, I am going to fetch you a maid.’ If someone were to say that now, he wouldn’t find many takers in the matrimonial market. That’s a blessing, really.”

Mukerjee is only too aware that his account of progressive change is somewhat contradicted by the limitations of social reality. Men, he says, always have an upper hand in a marriage. “They are never asked to leave their homes and live with a woman’s family. It is always the woman who is expected to satisfy — her husband, his mother, father, siblings, even his servants and maids. Our women are not raised in that fashion these days. We give them an education and upbringing that is equal.” Women lawyers in the country’s High Courts and Supreme Court, says Mukerjee, are worthy examples of an unalterable emancipation. “But even they aren’t very vociferous about women’s rights. We need to change our legal and mental processes. If we want freedom and development, we will have to pay heed to Swami Vivekananda and value our womankind.”

Decades of embattled proceedings later, Mukerjee says he found himself surprised not by the outlandish, but by the ordinary. The oddest case he had ever been part of involved two writers, both with great political pedigrees. After months of being unable to reconcile their differences, they had agreed to file for divorce. On the day that they came to court to collect their decree, Mukerjee was witness to a curious sight. “The recently divorced man was leaving the courtroom when his former wife called out to him — ‘Don’t forget your umbrella. It’s very sunny outside. You won’t be able to walk without it.’” The trouble with love, concludes the lawyer, is that it can be a little too sporadic. Several divorce litigations have left Mukerjee with the recipe for a happy marriage: “You need love, attachment, generosity, but above all, you must not always find fault with your spouse. We’re all flawed and no good can ever come from being fixated on the other’s defects. No couple should have to live their lives like disinterested passengers, but practice and experience can sometimes help make a difficult marriage perfect.”

Delhi

“Divorce is like cancer”

For 30 years, Malavika Rajkotia has been hearing upper-class Delhi complain and argue about their spouses. Of all the divorces she has been involved in, barely three have ended in reconciliation. “This is a step that people take after a lot of thought; in fact, after they have eliminated all other avenues. Divorce is still not taken lightly in this country. So post-divorce reconciliation is very rare,” she says.

In her book-lined office at the Capital’s Green Park neighbourhood, the whimsically coloured chairs add a dash of spring. Yet the stories aired in this office are grim. They are accounts of affairs, of abuse and neglect. It is not surprising then that Rajkotia begins by comparing divorce to cancer. “It is a grim example but I am amazed how similar they are. Cancer, I am told, is your own body reacting against you. Here, your marriage is reacting against you. It’s not nourished and it makes you unhappy, miserable and uncomfortable. There’s no tonic to improve it. It’ll affect every part of you. And even the good parts of your life will seem awful. The only difference between cancer and divorce is that you will survive divorce and you will eventually feel better,” she says.

I ask Rajkotia if any of her clients have ever expressed regret after getting a divorce. Has anyone wished they had stayed married? “I see people through the worst part of their lives. It’s understandable that they don’t want to hang around with me once the divorce is over,” she says, “but I doubt anyone ever regrets the divorce. On the contrary, they enjoy the freedom.”

Much has changed in the three decades that Rajkotia has spent hearing about what goes on within families. But the most important change, she says, is that now women are able to ask for their entitlements without embarrassment. “In the past, when women sought a settlement, it was always dismissed as greediness. People tittered about that. Despite this, I now see that finance is discussed unashamedly, unabashedly, honestly, as it should be. Earlier, the husband’s side would ask — but what do you want — and then make the wife feel lousy about asking for too much or too little, leaving her confused about asking for child support, etc. That pettiness in the system is kind of behind us. We are more professional now, and the important aspects of the divorce are discussed more openly,” she says.

The approach of women to themselves and to marriage has changed, observes Rajkotia, but the reason a divorce is still acrimonious is because the man’s approach has not. The gender expectation of men that their wives must make all the adjustments, that they play the subordinate, subservient role in a marriage, is still very strong. So men are surprised when their wives decide they have had enough. “The acknowledgment of what the woman has done for the family should come in financial terms,” says Rajkotia. Increasingly, a lot of women who are financially secure seek her advice on divorce. “And it thrills me that there are women who say I hope I don’t have to pay my husband. These are small steps, but show our society is evolving in the right way,” she says.

Rajkotia has no time for people who want to divorce over trivial reasons. “One hears some stories, about people filing for divorce because their wives refused to oil their hair, or they had to go to work without breakfast. But I don’t take those on,” she says. But there are plenty of really serious stories as well. Physical abuse is very much a part of some Indian marriages — irrespective of social class. And it isn’t relegated to men beating up their wives. The reverse often happens too. “I have had men tell me they had to lock themselves in the bathroom while their wives raged on, and there was a very real possibility that she would harm him physically. There are also cases where the wife incites violence — ‘Aren’t you going to hit me? Aren’t you going to hit me’ — so that there could be a cause for complaint. And that’s dreadful. Life is too short to live like that, but sadly, that is the reality for a lot of people,” she says.

Among Delhi’s moneyed elite, marital bickering often begins before the marriage. People, who spend bundles on engagement parties and commit to fancy weddings on foreign shores, reach the lawyer’s office before the wedding, seeking assurances and reassurances that the money promised would be spent. Some of these weddings go on for two and three weeks, which results in protracted interactions between the two families and that in itself gives rise to innumerable problems. Pre-nuptial agreements, while valid in India, are hardly ever used. Rajkotia has had only one or two clients enquiring about pre-nups so far. Despite its practicality, people often view it as a sour way to start a marriage.

Most cases that Rajkotia sees are people divorcing in their 50s. No matter how bad the marriage, people tend to wait for their children to grow up and be ‘settled’ before calling their life their own. A lot of it has to do with stressful lives in nuclear families, where the burden to make money, raise wholesome, healthy kids and live an envy-inducing lifestyle takes its toll. The minute the kids are out of the house, the couple lands up at the lawyer’s. “Sometimes, I also see the bad side of this postponement of individual freedom. After the divorce, a lot of people go on to live these very bizarre hedonistic lifestyles, where they are completely switched off from any kind of responsibility. So much so that they aren’t even accessible to family and old friends,” she says.

Rajkotia’s husband passed away when she was only 36, and she has spent three decades immersed in the muddy matters of marital bitterness, but she is still a proponent of the institution. “Of course, my children sometimes tell me that I am only full of cautionary tales about marriage,” she says. Good marriages eventually settle into a certain cynical but comfortable co-existence, people just don’t know this is what they should expect. “Romantic love,” Rajkotia says, “after 25 years can be rather exhausting. Who needs that?!”

Chennai

“She gave up in seven days”

In 15 years of her career, lawyer Dharma Raman has found herself more inclined to take up divorce cases — cases with a human side. And there has never been a dull moment. “It’s fascinating how different people react to the same situations,” she says. But for all the variables, says Raman, there’s but one constant — “There is no perfect marriage.

Every relationship needs time, and those willing to give it that time and effort are the ones who make it work — “It’s that simple”. “Marriage as a concept has changed today. Whether it’s a love or arranged marriage, marriage changes you, and your equations change after marriage. I have seen couples who have fallen in love, dated for seven years or more, who couldn’t wait to get married. But within a year of the wedding, they’re at court, seeking divorce by mutual consent. It makes you wonder how couples like our parents, who barely knew each other beforehand, managed to make it last for decades,” says Raman.

Recounting a recent case, where a couple met and decided to get married, but the girl walked out on her husband within a week, Raman’s tone is decidedly cautionary. “She came to me with her father. Young and well-educated, she was determined to end the marriage. I asked her, isn’t one week too little to give up on a man? But she was insistent… She told me that her husband was simply not interested in her. She felt like a glorified caretaker. She said I wash his clothes, I cook for him and I go to bed with him, that’s all there is to it.” When no amount of dissuasion worked, Raman helped her client file for divorce by mutual consent. But six months before the hearing, the husband changed his mind. He would keep calling her and entreating her to convince his wife to give their marriage another shot. The girl decided she would only consider it if he called her and asked her to come back. The man refused, insisting that since his wife left home of her own accord, she must come back on her own as well. No one wanted to be the first to ‘admit defeat’. It was an impasse that had ego written all over it. “I found it so strange that two educated people, with thriving careers, could not get past their egos. She gave up in seven days, and he couldn’t bring himself to take that first step.”

Trouble, however, comes in all shapes and melodramatic sizes. Raman remembers how a young man once approached her for an annulment right after the wedding. Theirs was a typical Tam-Brahm arranged marriage — or so he thought, until after the engagement, the groom-to-be received an email warning him about his fiancée. She, the mail claimed, was tying the knot to appease her parents and preparing to run away soon after. When confronted, the girl denied all such accusations and in a scene straight out of a Kollywood script, dragged him to the pooja room, lit camphor on her bare palm and swore to him that it was all a lie, a fabrication. Convinced, he ignored further emails and the wedding went ahead as planned. Minutes before the muhurtham, he got a call from an anonymous number warning him again of her flight. But he went ahead anyway, mostly to avoid the embarrassment. Unlike in masala films though, happily ever afters can be hard to come by. In love with a man from a different caste, the girl, whose father threatened to kill himself if she married outside her caste, agreed to the sham wedding, only to leave her new husband in the lurch. But did the blame lie squarely at the door of the girl?

Not all such stories must end on a bitter note though, proving — even if in curious ways — that sometimes love conquers all. Raman recalls one such couple in their mid-40s, who fell in love, defied their parents, got married and raised two teenage girls together. The man came to her one day, distraught after his wife filed for divorce, accusing him of sexual abuse. According to him, his wife had fallen into bad company and had started neglecting her family, choosing instead to go out drinking and partying. She had even had a couple of boyfriends. He said she was a changed person. But he refused to divorce his wife, and insisted that she was only led astray by her friends and alcohol. Fighting a battle in court for a couple of years, allowing his wife to move out while he looked after the kids, convinced that her boyfriends were mere distractions, and that the drinking and partying was temporary, the man took a long time to agree to a divorce by mutual consent. Even then he said he knew she would come back to him some day. When he saw her in court, her haggard appearance — after-effects, perhaps, of a long night out — would have him worrying. “That was a kind of love, I had never seen before,” says Raman, “at least not from a man. In fact, the entire episode reminded me of the women from 40 years ago, who silently watched as their husbands set up homes with their mistresses, convinced that they would someday return to their legally wedded wife.” But the man’s conviction was not entirely unfounded. A year and a half after their divorce, the couple reconciled, mending the cracks that had once seemed irreparable.

Whether it’s freedom from a bad marriage or rebuilding a broken home, sometimes, happy endings are made in court, not heaven.

Veena Venugopal (Mumbai and Delhi), Shreevatsa Nevatia (Kolkata), Elizabeth Mathew (Chennai)

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