Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned

There is a tendency amongst many of us hack writers to attribute any slick proverb to Shakespeare. The Bard of Avon came up with so many smart lines befitting any occasion, that one can be excused for giving him the credit for aphorisms he did not even write. My proverb of choice for this essay is ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.’ I diligently researched the saying to ensure it was not one of Shakespeare’s nuggets. In fact, it was William Congreve who came up with this beauty in his Restoration play, The Mourning Bride, way back in 1697. Congreve is also credited with the other famous quote, ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage breast,’ which has often been misquoted as ‘Music has charms to soothe a savage beast.’ Dear reader, I can see you getting all fidgety and going, ‘That’s all very well about Congreve whoever he was, but where are you going with all this? We haven’t got all day, you know.’ My apologies. I will come straight to the point.

I recently came across a news item that a woman in the city of Pune was so incensed with her thirty-something husband that she punched him in the nose, so hard that the poor fellow died. Probably of nasal asphyxiation, if there be such a term. She almost certainly did not mean to total her hubby but that, tragically, is what happened. Apparently, it was the young lady’s birthday and she had set her eyes on a shopping trip to Dubai. When it became clear that no air and hotel bookings for Dubai had been made, and that the husband was planning to fob her off with some flowers and a dinner date at a nearby restaurant, all hell broke loose. You would not be far wrong in saying the gloves were off.

The better half, for want of a better term, hauled off and delivered a vicious right hook to the unfortunate chap’s nasal bridge that would have made Mike Tyson proud. She punched his lights out and not only did the husband see stars, he was soon one among the stars! Evidently, the husband had also promised her expensive jewellery and luxury perfumes, but nothing was forthcoming on the big day. You can see where the hellish fury was coming from, but hey, she could have confined her aggression to a few tight slaps or something less fatal than a bleeding, blocked nose resulting in the bread winner’s last breath. The police are now trying to piece together the whole unpleasant episode. The killer widow must be full of remorse and crying her eyes out. Next time, if there be a next time, she must learn to go easy on the wrist work and follow through while delivering the punch. Better still, the stomach would have been the least fatal target what with its natural cushioning and inherent give. Which is sooner said than done. ‘Heat of the moment’ will be her plea to the cops and the courts. My own take is that she will not face the ultimate wrath of the law, though a verdict of manslaughter could well be on the cards.

In a reversal of roles, an irate husband in Bangalore hurled a pressure cooker full of boiling sambar at his wife, causing severe burns and injuries. I am not making this up, cross my heart and hope to die. This after not being able to push her over the balcony or finding a knife handy to stab her mortally. And the provocation? Apparently, the family was skint, unable to pay the rent and living from hand to mouth. The man of the house was an electrician and the distraught wife requested him to help a neighboring senior citizen with some electrical repairs, thereby earning an honest wage and keeping the wolf from the door. Why this perfectly reasonable suggestion should have shocked the electrician to such an extent that he should himself have turned into a werewolf, reached for the sambar-filled pressure-cooker and performed a discus throw with it, is a moot point. His wife was rushed to hospital.

Last heard, the wife was recovering and the husband was headed for the hills, tail between legs, being pursued by the local gendarmerie. So here we have an instance of a woman, not quite scorned, but scorched and scarred by sambar. I would suggest she follow her Pune counterpart, viz., find the blighter, and with hellish fury punch him with all her strength right on the nose. And let the devil take the hindmost.

For the most part, domestic physical violence has a been a conspicuously male preserve. Never a day passes without the media reporting a man abusing his infinitely better half for the flimsiest of reasons. Like the chappatis were too cold or the tea was too hot. Once in a rare while, we get refreshing news of the tyrant getting his comeuppance, bobbitised by his partner in the dead of night. Such cases are few and far between. However tragic the consequences of the Pune lady’s pugilistic approach towards her husband, she was probably taking out her frustration for being ignored or rebuffed over long periods of time. The anger was building up to a crescendo. However, that is only me playing guessing games. I do feel a pang of sympathy for the unfortunate husband who was merely trying to keep the home fires burning by not splurging on expensive foreign travel and shopping sprees in Dubai. Truth will out. It is one thing to literally have one’s nose put out of joint, quite another to have the breathing apparatus rendered hors de combat forever.

Moral of the story. Next time your wife insists on a foreign holiday and a visit to Cartier or Gucci in Paris or Venice, keep your guard up and stand at a safe distance away from her before saying ‘No.’ Above all, learn how to duck and weave.

As published in the Deccan Chronicle dated November 29, 2023.