Domestic Violence is not a phenomenon of the rural or urban poor alone in India. According to a UN estimate, 70% of India’s women have been beaten, raped or coerced into having sex. The understanding of domestic violence is itself, quite poor in India – slapping a wife, daughter or sister (in some cases even a fiancé or a girlfriend) finds widespread social legitimacy. Two-thirds of the women in India, according to a UNDP estimate believed it was all right for men to slap them for “infringements” as small as failing to prepare a meal well.I wish I had a big bell to ring out of my balcony, every time I see a man come home drunk and beat his wife. If a bell were rung for every woman abused at home– physically, sexually and emotionally – we would be living in a world of tinnitus. But perhaps that’s the only cure.