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A new book is dismantling the stigma around divorce and the labels that come with it

Author Shasvathi Siva's debut book offers guidance to individuals who have been through a separation or are contemplating it

On January 24, 2019, Shasvathi Siva uploaded a picture of a ring that rested prettily on her finger. In the accompanying post, along with the hashtag #happilydivorced and #divorceisnormal, she wrote about how when she removed her engagement ring back in 2017 after wearing it for an uninterrupted 31 months, it wasn’t the empowering move that she thought it would be – instead, it just felt empty.

She’d chanced upon the new ring on a visit to Chennai, her hometown in South India, and it looked and felt perfect. “I wore this ring and felt oddly complete, and liberated,” she wrote in the post. “I learnt that I’m my best companion…” Little did the Mumbai resident know that the post and the hashtag would launch a movement of sorts.

In the book, Siva writes that she pretended to be happy, both offline and online, for a long time and when we speak, she recalls how she was nervous about the post. “I didn’t know how people were going to take it,” she says. “But the response was phenomenal. So many people — even those I follow or have engaged with — reached out and shared their experiences as well… With every post, I realised that more people want to hear about this, they can relate to it and that they feel good that there is an outlet to share.” Over the last few years, the 31-year-old has spoken and written about destigmatising and normalising divorce, the persisting social stigma and how life doesn’t and shouldn’t end with a divorce.

She is now out with her debut book Divorce is Normal where she has spoken to lawyers, therapists, people who have divorced (she dislikes the tag ‘divorcee’ as it “defines you by your past”) and children of divorce, besides writing about her own experience of getting divorced. It reads like a guide for those who are contemplating or going through a divorce, are stuck in unhappy marriages, or even those whose near ones are going through a difficult time and struggling to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Dealing with divorce

Siva grew up in Chennai, in a liberal household. She was 24 when she got married and there was no external pressure to do so — it just felt like the next natural step. “Now, when I look back, that’s not the age at all (to get married). And today, I tell all my aunts, younger cousins and everybody, ‘Please wait till you're 30’ — that’s just the minimum age. Your attitude and everything sort of changes so much when you are older.”

Her family and friends lent their unwavering support but it was an extremely hard time. In the book, she describes that period as being filled with days when she either felt like ‘all’s right with the world’, or wondered why the weeping wouldn’t stop.

The turning point came when she read a tweet by a woman named Sarita, who described divorce as the best thing that happened to her. Siva reached out to her and the two met at a café. It was the first time Siva actually vocalised her decision and thoughts about getting a divorce. “I hadn’t even hired a lawyer then, so it was a very new conversation and I was very scared. But when I saw her on the other side, being so open and confident in her skin and her life, and with so much energy, she was like a role model. I got so much hope that day that I felt, ‘You know what, I am going to be that in a few years’,” she recalls. Thanks to her strong support system and new hobbies, like working out, she survived and soon, thrived.

Siva is perhaps best known for her work through her support group, also called Divorce is Normal, which she launched in 2019 and later also took on Telegram. She held the group’s first meeting at a restaurant in Mumbai where 12 women, aged between 22 and 60, turned up. She started conducting meetings with smaller groups in other cities and estimates that she has interacted with more than 200 people.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, she took the group online and people from all over the world logged in. “The pandemic, especially, was a very difficult time,” she recalls. “There are no holidays for support groups as people constantly need support. There have been days when I switched off my camera and cried because of the things people were going through. But I was sure I had to continue doing it because it was helping so many people.” Today, the group has organically grown as a community-led initiative.

Reactions to her work have been overwhelmingly positive, but there have been a few unpleasant situations as well. For instance, she was accused of glorifying and promoting divorce by trolls. “(People on) Twitter (now, ‘X’) have abused me to the next level whenever I put out anything. They have called me ‘house breaker’ and that I am the reason why children are unhappy.” But all that’s just noise. “I think it predominantly comes from men because they benefit from marriages…” The very few women who have been critical usually questioned her on the need to talk about divorce — a point of view which she doesn’t agree with, but is familiar with and understands. “I understand that people have been brought up to say, ‘Don’t talk about it’,” she says.

Life after divorce

Like every marriage, every divorce is different and Siva has tried to bring this out in the book by talking to about 147 people, including experts, lawyers and people who have been through a divorce to bring out their stories. She has written about juggling court dates, what to expect during a divorce, including the legalities, different types of divorce (mutual divorce, a contested petition and so on) and the importance of therapy. Divorced men and women also talk about how they navigated through the whole process, their coping strategies and their own reasons for getting divorced, which ranged from abuse to drifting apart and falling out of love.

Research included conducting long conversations with people for many months, all the while juggling a full-time job. “Going through that process of the interviews was tough. A lot of people broke down while talking about it,” she says. “So it was very heavy.” But there are also passages that are filled with honesty, courage and joy, and Siva hopes the book will drive home the point that divorce is not the end of the world. She has dedicated the book to her family, dogs, friends and — one can’t help smiling here — fiancé. “I think I now actually understand what a healthy relationship is,” she says. Communication, openness and respect are all important. “I was single for a very long time and worked on myself to understand who I am as a person,” she says. So when she met her now-fiancé, she no longer felt broken. “I am very comfortable in my company and I am very confident in my ability to take care of myself and my family. I don’t need a man to complete me — I needed a partner who would fit into my life and let me into his life in a very equal and joyful way,” she smiles.

wknd@khaleejtimes.com