The recent case of the 11-year-old child being raped by multiple men in Chennai was deeply disturbing. It also made me realise if a 11-year-old child can speak up about the abuse and inform a concerned relative (her sister), then as a 33-year-old I should also be speaking up.
#WhenIwas11 I got molested by a 55-year-old drunk man on overnight train, heading back to Chennai. I was sleeping in the middle birth and he was sleeping on the top birth. I was travelling with an adult. I was deep in sleep, but was having nightmares; suddenly I was jerked into consciousness by pain. I woke up to find my skirt pulled up, my underpants rolled down and the creep groping me. I screamed and screamed and screamed till the lights came on and I dissolved in a weeping heap.
A crowd had gathered and the TTR came. The TTR, crowd wanted to beat him up and file a case at the next railway police station. The adult with me said No; they’d rather not report the matter. What was worse than the assault was what followed….That day, I remember kneeling down (as punishment) and a voice yelling, – “Do you know what she did today? She seduced a fat bald 50 year old man!”
I didn’t know what “seduced” meant. I didn’t know how babies were born. I only knew I felt cheap, dirty and untouchable. Someone, something gross, repulsive beyond words. The adult blamed me for choosing not to wear a petticoat that day. For me being an active kid, loving to run around, play games, I’d always hated restrictive garments ….but the comment stayed with me for years – I’d always wear petticoats, pin my duppatta on both sides – be the worst-dressed dork at MCC- then one of the most liberal colleges.
And this safe space of shabby dressing stayed with me through the college years, through my work life; only lately have I started making an effort to be more presentable; to atleast iron my work clothes. I told myself it didn’t matter how I dressed, it was who I was. To my puzzled friends, I played the part of a geek, too immersed in the world of books to care for clothes, perfume and makeup. I didn’t tell them it was my safe space.
I’ve faced other instances of more severe sexual assault as a teenager. But this time I’d learnt my lesson – I didn’t tell anyone. To speak about it was to invite blame. Meanwhile to my extreme suprise, I became an extremely popular student both in high school and college. I had enough and more boys asking me out on dates. Even, now (to my surprise) men ask me out – and it has acted as a balancer — my relative popularity and wide circle of friends — something that keeps at bay all the negative feelings and body loathing I’ve grown up with.
However, the after-effect of the sexual assault and the self-loathing that followed went deeper and had more serious consequences. When I was 18, I discovered when I was bathing that there was a huge lump on my left breast. I was aghast at the size and my heart kept thumping to this rhythm, “cancer, cancer, cancer.” I finally worked up the courage after a week to try and seek medical attention. The doctor was horrified. “Why did you keep quiet for so long? Why did you let it grow? How could you have not noticed earlier? If this lump had attched to the skin or bone it would have turned cancerous. What were you thinking?” How could I tell him I hadn’t noticed because I hated me, myself, my body – loathed it beyond measure.
And then I remember a voice telling, “She has been planning this. She wants to use this as an excuse to skip her final year exam.” I shrivelled up inside of me and wanted to die. The unfairness of the comment hit me hard. In the first place, as my MCC profs would attest I was an above average student; one of those intelligent, but lazy students who gets 85% at times; but also 45% because I couldn’t be bothered. But I’d always mananged to scrape through a 70-75% average by burning the midnight candle in the night. I’d never flunked an exam till then. But that time I did – I flunked 8 of my papers. What I hadn’t anticipated was my brain to stop working; for fever, flushes, high temperatures, headaches to plague me till the point of surgery.
Another aspect of child abuse victims is their silence; their total and complete silence and resilience. Physical pain is something we are used to. It’s the emotional pain that can be blinding, mind-numbing and send us down on a downward spiral of hopelessness and despair. So, when I had the breast surgery, I remember the doctors complimenting me on my cooperation. I didn’t flinch when they poked needles into me; or sucked out vials of blood. It was the same when doctors bound up my leg when I fractured it the second time. I didn’t cry out. I just gritted my teeth and clamped hard on a towel. And even worse, I didn’t cry out when the pathetic pretense of a human being — legally called my husband — was beating me to a pulp, when I was 7 months pregnant. Foolishness, bravery? It was the same, when Indra was born. It was a natural delivery and I cooperated to the utmost, despite the pain; despite local anaesthesia being administered just 5 minutes before she was born. The silence – I would say has become so much a part of me; a longstanding habit too hard to break; the ability to not let physical pain factor in your thinking process, your functioning.
When the doctor’s took out the lump, they put it in a jar of ether – a tennis-sized ball with tendrils of my pink flesh still clinging to it. They showed it to me and said by the size of it – it was probably growing since I turned 14. Something as simple, as easily detectable as a lump, I’d failed to spot because of my extreme body loathing. So when someone next tells you about their sexual abuse experience – you could just listen and not judge. You might end up saving them years of misery.
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