A grieving mother is chronicling the abuse her daughter's ex-boyfriend allegedly inflicted upon her, in a new book, after it reportedly led to her committing suicide in 2016.
Meera Dalal had experienced a sustained period of alleged abuse that ultimately led the Leicester based NHS professional to tragically take her own life in the family home. She had sought help from doctors and a report from her GP was read out as evidence at the original inquest in Loughborough showing how fragile her mental state had become.
Now her mother, Daksha, has teamed up with author and domestic abuse campaigner Saurav Dutt to chronicle her grief, the ordeal her daughter went through and to create a help guide for other vulnerable persons who may be experiencing abuse but don’t know where to turn.
“A loss of a child is an intense grief that you will never, ever be able to overcome,” Mrs Daksha Dalal said, “Sometimes I go to sleep and I don’t want to wake up. But I have to raise awareness of this kind of abuse-especially in the South Asian community-so that not one more single person feels so defeated and weakened that they have to take their own life.
"If I could help one girl, one child or somebody's daughter, that would make me happy. I know that there is help out there but you have to be brave enough to take it. I have to turn this unbearable pain into something positive to help those out there who are being abused and who want to move away from that dark place and move ahead with their lives.”
Saurav Dutt, whose debut novel The Butterfly Room, chronicled the accounts of over 200 domestic abuse survivors, said that it was important that people understood how complex domestic violence and psychological abuse is and that the South Asian community has a particular challenge in overcoming the issue which is often seen as taboo.
“We wanted to understand why a vibrant, happy, 25 year old young lady would be driven to a point where she decided she did not want to remain in this world any longer. How does domestic violence change one’s mind set and approach to life? What can young people do to spot the signs and seek help? Can they move past these dark, often ugly, chapters in their life-and if they can’t, what are the reasons? We hope this book helps us answer some of these questions as well as to speak to every parent who has lost a child to such an ugly crime and to provide them with a means to understand the incredible pain of loss.”
Miss Dalal killed herself at her family home in Syston, her family moved to a different area of Leicestershire after her death.
Mrs Dalal has been raising awareness of domestic abuse since her daughter's death through a Facebook page in her memory, and says many victims have contacted her.
Saurav Dutt has campaigned for domestic abuse survivors and has written and spoken about the subject at forums as varied as the WEF (Women’s Economic Forum), WIN (Women’s Interfaith Network) as well as being interviewed by Baroness Shami Chakrabarti on the subject and The Butterfly Room.
The book, entitled ‘Fall In Light: A Mother’s Story’ will be released in June 2019, on what would have been Meera’s 30th birthday. Book proceeds are already being planned to be provided to the samaritans and organisations assisting those experiencing domestic abuse.
