Never the twain shall meet, it appears in the case of N Divya of Dharmapuri, whose elopement and marriage with Dalit boy Ilavarasan led to large scale violence last year. Signaling the end of a saga of love and turbulence, the young girl made it clear on Wednesday that she will never again go back to her husband but stay with her mother and try to compensate for the death of her father.
“Under no circumstance am I ready to live with him (Ilavarasan) again. The troubles of my family alone are in my mind. I want to be with my mother and compensate for the loss of my father,” an emotional Divya told reporters outside the Madras High Court.
The girl, who belonged to the dominant-OBC Vanniyar community, admitted that she did marry Ilavarasan out of her own liking. But after her father’s death (he committed suicide), it led to lot of troubles in the villages. “The troubles alone are in my mind. I was not able to live with him. But in the circumstance that I was in, I was not able to leave him immediately. This is the reason for the delay in coming back to my house,” she reasoned.
On reports that she had told the judges that her stay with her mother was temporary and she might go back to Ilavarasan if her family accepted him, Divya denied making such a claim.
“All these days, my stance has been that I need both my mother and my husband. But I am continuously filled with the memories of my father. I am not prepared to live with him (Ilavarasan) at all,” she said and added that reports that she would like to go back to her husband had completely isolated her.
Meanwhile, when the matter came up before the bench comprising justices M Jaichandren and M M Sundresh, the counsel for Divya’s mother Thenmozhi submitted that she wanted to withdraw the habeas corpus petition being heard by the bench.
On the other hand, counsel for Ilavarasan, Shankara Subbu, vehemently opposed closing of the petition and argued that the stand taken by Divya was clearly due to pressure from vested interests. He wanted a scientific test by a psychologist to determine if Divya had been coerced to move away from her husband. The matter was adjourned to Friday.