Husband vanishes leaving wife in desperate situation

She stares blankly, gets a little incoherent as she fights her tears, but Shanthikumari Ismail has a steely resolve to find her Indian husband, who has left her and their daughter in the lurch.

The life of this 36-year-old Sri Lankan housewife seems to be straight out of an Indian film, alas with a tragic twist.

Happily married for eight years, Shanthikumari's life was cruising smoothly with her 39-year-old Indian husband, K.I., whom she met while working in Oman as a salesperson in a jewellery showroom.

"When we met, he was jobless and I used to support him," says Shanthikumari. Love blossomed and the two eventually registered their marriage in Sri Lanka and later had a daughter, Arshani Roshan, who is now seven.

Shanthikumari insists: "We were happy with each other." Or so she thought as her husband never even hinted that he had plans to desert her.

One morning he left and she thought he had gone to Salalah for work. K.I., who's from Kannur (Chittariparamba), Kerala, was a bus driver with a transport company and used to take passengers to Salalah.

"He would come after four-five days or even a week after a trip to Salalah," she said. Two months back when he left their Muscat house she thought he had gone to Salalah. But he fled to India without telling her.

The dusky Sri Lankan is puzzled at her husband's second disappearance. "This has come out of the blue and he seemed to have planned meticulously," she says.

K.I. has either destroyed all the photographs of them together or taken with him. But Shanthikumari found a two-year-old family portrait from behind a dressing table while vacating her Muscat house.

"I had to vacate the house as K.I. had neither paid rent nor utility bills. I tried to look for our pictures and there were so many of them but I couldn't find anything except one which had fallen behind the dressing table," she said as she fought her tears.

While Shanthikumari spoke to Gulf News, her daughter seemed a little lost. "She now knows that her father has gone to India and we are going in search of him."

"Five years ago, he had tried to turn his back on us but I travelled to Kerala and brought him back," she says. That's the only time Shanthikumari has visited her husband's hometown. And, she hasn't gone to Sri Lanka for a long time.

"My parents told me not to come to Sri Lanka after I married K.I.," she said.

She is puzzled that K.I. has not even bothered about Arshani Roshan, a Grade II student of Indian School Muscat. "He loved her and she loves him but he went without paying her fees and has not made attempts to talk to her."

In fact, K.I. had threatened her that he would kill her if she tried to go to his hometown in Kerala. "I don't know what my fate is going to be, but I am worried about my daughter," she said.

She hopes to get a job somewhere in the Gulf as she cannot return to Muscat after cancellations of her present visa. She is fluent in English, Hindi, Tamil, Sinhala and Malayalam and hopes she can land a job in the sales field.

"I am going to India but with what he has done this time I don't know if I can ever live with him," said Shanthikumari, who hopes to at least get some alimony. "He has taken all the money that we had," she bemoans.

She said that no one from the Sri Lankan community came forward to help her but a lot of Indians have helped her in hour of crisis.

"Thanks to the effort of P.M. Jabir and Kerala Wing of Indian Social Centre, I have got a ticket and visa to go to India," she said.

What if her husband refuses to accept her? Will she go to Sri Lanka?

"What will I do? My family (in Sri Lanka) has disowned me, because I married an Indian. So, I have nothing to do with Sri Lanka," she said.

Jabir, who is also the Kairali channel coordinator in Oman, has been helping her by highlighting her story on a programme named Missing Persons. He said that he had arranged for an escort in Kerala for Shanthikumari.

"An NGO women's group will help Shanthikumari trace her husband and also look after her during her stay in India," Jabir told Gulf News yesterday.

Thanks to him, the story has been highlighted in the Kairali channel and it is learnt that almost everyone in Chittariparamba is aware of K.I.'s deeds.

Shanthikumari, who is determined to fight back, leaves today for India in her quest to find her husband or at least justice.