PK Thomas was reluctant to speak about his daughter, Jisemol, when I first reached out to him over the phone. “What is left to say?” he asked. There was little I could say to that.
It was just over two weeks ago, on April 15, that Jisemol (34) was found dead, allegedly by suicide. Her body, along with those of her daughters aged five and one, was found in the Meenachil river in Kerala’s Kottayam.
Thomas had already spoken to the press about it, and he was sure that his daughter was driven to suicide by her husband, Jimmy, and his family. Thomas accused them of harassing her for dowry and shaming her for her skin colour. According to him, Jisemol also feared that the cycle of violence would continue for her daughters, too.
Even without knowing her personally, it was hard to forget Jisemol — a Kerala High Court lawyer and former president of Kottayam’s Mutholy panchayat, who felt so reduced to how her husband allegedly saw her body that nothing could help her feel worthy of life.
I tried to reach out to Thomas again, this time with the help of a colleague who gently urged him to meet. A few days later, he agreed.
Sitting on the stairs leading to the front door of his house, Thomas recalled, “One day, when I met Jisemol after work, she had a swollen bruise on her forehead. I knew Jimmy hit her, but she admitted it only two days later. I told her several times to come home. She would just smile and say her husband would change his ways, that she was praying every day.”