The husband failed to show up at the airport to pick her up and refused to take her calls
There is no dearth of stories of brides in India being abandoned by their NRI spouses, mostly living in the West. These men go to India, get married and take return flights to Canada, the US, England or wherever, promising their new wives that they will sponsor them once they are back home.
In a vast number of cases, the poor wives never hear from their husbands.
But here is even a more shocking story of a girl who says she was abandoned when she reached Toronto airport in November last year to join her husband in Canada.
She says her husband didn’t show up at the airport to pick her up and refused to take her calls. He thought she would return to India.
With just 200 dollars in her pocket and not knowing a soul in Canada, the devastated girl desperately called her parents back in India for help. Her shocked parents called her in-laws in Haryana, but they refused to take their calls.
Not knowing what to do next, she called her brother in the India for help, who somehow arranged my accommodation at his friend’s place.
Here is the shocking story of that girl, a B.Tech graduate from Saharanpur, in her own words.
By Preeti Kumar
TORONTO: Belonging to a family of Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh (my old parents, 4 sisters and one brother), I was working with JPMorgan Chase in Hyderabad when my family started looking for a suitable boy for me.
In December 2018, our family placed a matrimonial ad for me in Bharat Matrimony. One of the respondents was from Canada. A research analyst in Ontario, he came to his native Kaithal, Haryana in February 2019. We liked each other and got engaged.
After he returned to Canada, his family started putting pressure on me to get married soon. But I said I want to take my time and know my fiancé well before I tie the knot. My fiancé and I used to chat over the phone.
By having long chats, I wanted to know him better since we had spent very little time together. I wanted to ensure that if something between us was not okay, we shouldn’t go ahead with the wedding.
Finally, towards the end of the year (2019), he came to India, and we got married on 2nd December 2019.
After our reception, we flew to Thailand for our honeymoon for a week and then returned to India.
Before my husband flew back to Canada on December 22, 2019, I requested many times to file for my visitor visa so that we could live together for some time. But he always came with an excuse to avoid it. He told me that he couldn’t afford me living in Canada as I won’t be able to work because of my visitor status.
After returning to Canada, he told me that he had filed for my PR.
So far so good.
Then his behaviour started changing. Often, he won’t pick up the phone. He started blaming me for unrelated things. He started throwing fits and went to the extent of saying that he was forced into this marriage. All this caused immense mental torture to me. Whenever I tried to counter him, he threatened me with divorce.
He and his parents kept pressuring me to leave my job. His father also called my father several times, asking that he must advise me to leave my job and start a life as a housewife in Kaithal.
Unfortunately, then the pandemic intervened and I lost my job with J.P Morgan Chase. For almost seven, I was jobless and my husband and his parents never inquired or extended any financial support to me during this period.
In December 2020, my husband came to India. I wanted to come to Canada with him on a visitor visa. Initially, he refused but after parental pressure agreed and I applied for the visa. But my application was rejected as I had no job. After two months’ stay, he left for Canada without me in February 2021.
I stayed with my in-laws for eight months stay. They were nice to me initially until my family kept fulfilling their demands. But their behaviour started changing as months passed by.
Then in April 2021, my elderly mother, who was already very troubled by what her daughter was going through, suffered a fracture and I moved to Saharanpur to support her as there was nobody around her.
During my stay with my parents, our marriage went downhill further as my husband started using abusive language against my parents during his calls to me. It was the peak of COVID, Upar se phone pe uski galiya. Life was becoming unbearable for me.
Then the Canadian High Commission sent me a letter, stating that my PR application has been approved. When I called my husband with the news and wanted to discuss on the dates of my journey, he was evasive and asked me to arrange things (ticket and dates) on my own. I brought his behaviour to notice his and my families.
Then he changed and asked me to come to Toronto before Diwali day (Nov 7, 2021). Quickly, I got an Air Canada ticket booked for November 1 at my own expense.
Now here is the first big twist in the tale.
Just days before leaving for Canada I was staying with his parents. When I called my husband on Karwa Chauth (Oct 24, 2021), he didn’t respond. His parents spoke to him the same day and they didn’t ask him why he refused to talk to me.
Here is yet another big twist in the tale.
Two days before I was to board my flight, my husband called me early in the morning, saying that I must not come to Canada and that he wants divorce. I got panicky. My father-in-law called my father in Saharanpur and assured him that my husband will be at Toronto airport to pick me up.
So, I took the risk, boarded the Air Canada flight from Delhi and landed on Toronto in the morning of November 1, 2021.
When I came out of the terminal with my luggage, my husband was nowhere to be seen. My heart sank. I called him, but he didn’t respond. I was totally devastated. I called my parents, and they tried to call his parents. But there was no response from his parents.
After four hours, I called my brother in India.He somehow arranged my accommodation with his friend’s help. My husband left me stranded in a completely unknown country, and I was completely broken.
After few days tried connecting with him from a different phone number. He picked up the phone and said: ‘Who is this?’ I said: ‘Preeti, your wife.’ He said: ‘I am busy and will call you later.’ When I pleaded with him to talk to me, he warned me not to call again and hung up. That was our last conversation.
He must have thought that I had returned to India from Toronto airport.
I didn’t know his Toronto address and I had just $200 in my pocket when I landed at the airport.
Then my brother in India located a friend of his in the GTA. He was going to India, and he gave me his apartment and some money (my brother paid him an equal amount in India) to survive.
On December 30 last year, I got the news from my family in India that my parents have got divorce papers from my husband’s family. They wanted divorce on the grounds of false allegations and that we two were not staying together. This all looks like a gameplan by them.
Immediately, I brought this issue to the notice of the Indian consulate in Toronto. They put me in touch with Ms. Sunder Singh of Elspeth Heyworth Centre for Women. She counselled and guided me, and now she and her NGO become my second family here in Canada.
I started applying for jobs in Canada and luckily got one with Scotiabank on January 4, 2022.
Now that I am a little settled and in a better frame of mind, I want justice and continue my fight so that no other woman goes through what I have endured.
I am asked: ‘Was dowry a factor in my case?’ Perhaps. We paid Rs 20 lakh cash to my husband’s family) and they have all my valuables (jewellery) which were gifted to me from my family and out in a bank locker.
During my stay with my in-laws, I sensed that they wanted more from me and my parents. Now, I am hearing from his relatives in India that my husband’s family wants a new bride for him from Haryana after my divorce so that they can extort good dowry from the new bride’s family.
Being traditional, my old parents still want reconciliation so that their daughter lives happily in Canada. But having suffered deep mental scars from my husband and his family, I am afraid I don’t want to be in this situation. My fight is on.
(The views are personal)
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