Take Back India-I (Men We Trust)

(I haven’t slept in the last few days. Continuous print, television and social media coverage of the latest case of Delhi Rape triggers memories and reminds me of myself and my sisters. I have struggled about writing this, if I should, why I should. For one, it is not easy to vulnerable again. Second, I want to be able to get to that space where stories make us aware, sensitive and respectful but do not titillate. A friend urged me to write, write as I always write—“honest to the core.”

There are many words in the sexual violence dictionary—rape, sexual assault, molestation, sexual harassment in workplace and in public space (the later is often called “eve-teasing”), groping and so on. Today they have even created categories of rape to include “rarest of rare rape.” The intent being to categorize the various kinds of violence that occurs but indirectly, they subliminally convey what can seek legal redressal and what cannot, what causes loss of “honour” and what does not, what can cause lifetime damage and what cannot. I maintain all forms of violence is violence, a violation of the body and the soul and that in some form or other, depending on that human, causes soul suffering and soul memories for a lifetime and beyond.

I have written on sexual violence before: “Grandmas who are remembered and not” and “Silence that never was.” This present series intends to fill gaps in the current coverage for creating awareness and to repower women. In this piece, I write about men we trust. In the following pieces, I write on how women cope, innovative ways by which a woman can take back the country right now, and the final piece on solutions. Please read it and pass it on).

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. –Audre Lorde

They say there are good men who walk the streets, share our workspace, live with us in our homes. Men who protect us, respect us, never forget we are humans. I am sure there are. But in the fog of repeated betrayals, every silhouette is a potential threat walking towards me.

One cannot speak of others without speaking of oneself.

Wasn’t I playing the silly child’s game of “catch me if you can”? Weren’t we laughing, excitedly building our self-esteem on whether we are smart and swift enough to escape being caught? Anna (Elder Brother), when did you join in this game? Why did you catch a seven-year-old me again and again and hold your little sister against you for long? I now know what you did that day. And I realize all that you may have done during the months you stayed with us and the times you visited us...memories fog, I only know that when I see you, even today I bolt, even today my heart palpitates and that I look at your wife and daughter with sadness, wondering what stories were left untold. And that I haven’t forgotten.

An eight o’clock Mumbai local. A 19-year-old me was supposed to get into the ladies compartment. But it appeared some compartments convert into general after a certain point at night. I didn’t know. I looked around confused—men, and only men in a packed compartment. Just in case you were wondering what I was wearing—I wore a close-necked pink salwar kameez complete with a dupatta (scarf).  Pink used to be my favourite colour. I do not know how it started. But soon there were hands all over me, inside my clothes, as I thrashed around, crying for help, trying to beat off the strange faceless hands, trying to extricate to a space of safety. Did I hear someone asking me to get closer to the door? I swirled, stamping on feet, pushing hands and fingers away, it dawned that men near the door also wanted to participate—from one pack to another. Hmmm, I wonder where the “good men” in the train were. Or perhaps I did not cry loud enough. I still freeze inside when someone mentions Mumbai locals.

In my family doctor’s clinic. 21-year-old me on his examination table. I hear him telling me that I should ease up. That he is a brother, a bhai, wanting to ensure his sister has a healthy married life. Brother’s intention is always pure. I blink through the years I have known him—when a newly married him and his wife moved into our neighbourhood, when his son was born and then his daughter, me playing with them, talking to them in baby language, of the times he came to our house to give my mother an injection to ease her bronchial attack, of how my mother depended on him, of the times he took care of my brother and my father, our family’s saviour, the respected doctor of our neighbourhood, the good man we all knew. Not just that once, but again. You may wonder how I could have allowed violation a second time. Well, he was the doctor my family depended on and I knew him for so many years. Maybe I was mistaken, maybe I didn’t understand... Today I know. Of all the images of the neighbourhood I grew up in, I remember the clinic. Even today, I freeze when I see men who have similar features, whose hands look similar.

At my first job. One of the 4 women recruited nationally for a pharma group as a sales representative, first time ever for that group and one of the first batch of women to enter the medical representative field. Me and my only female colleague seated around a conference table listening to the multiple lewd comments thrown—in good humour. Nah, we could not eat a vegetable chop without being reminded that it was one of my colleagues’ genitals, a man almost 30 years our senior, who we called as “da“ or “dada”—elder brother. Nor could we eat a samosa or drink tea.  I thought to myself—maybe this is how work atmosphere is. Maybe I need to chill and be cool. I laughed. I tried to joke. I tried to be part of the group. And wondered why it felt so horrid. And wondered later, after the meeting, on how to respond to colleagues who asked for boatrides with me. And what to do about a manager, who on evening sales visits, spoke of the “dry orgasms” I gave him. Or how to manage a doctor who promised to push my company’s products if I went out with him. Hmmm..good men...

I am grateful for these experiences. I recently read a wonderful article on “5 ways to Practice Gratitude in an Insane World” on Subho’s Jejune Diet in which the author speaks of the need to be grateful for difficult times. I am grateful because the experiences made me sensitive as a human, allowed me to examine preconceptions, gave me an opportunity to heal and become whole, made me wise. More importantly, it prepared me to receive other stories.

My topic for Ph.D. research was very innocent—I wanted to understand how women in a particular transnational spiritual community lived. And unwittingly, I discovered that majority of the participants in the community were rape or incest survivors. In fact, I had been noting that my other research papers also strangely led to women who were survivors and that without intending to, I was actually documenting how they coped the thereafter and how they transformed. Life experiences that converted all feminist theories I had read in textbooks into theories of flesh.

Year 2007 and 2008: As I sat through several evenings either listening to women, or listening over and again to the recordings, or reading transcripts, I realized the gravity of Gloria Anzaldua’s words “there are no safe spaces.” Whether the experience of a four-year old who was raped by her grandpa, or the young teen raped by her trusted male friend, or the young girl who witnessed her mother’s rape by a burglar, or the woman gangraped by soldiers, or the child raped by her uncle or the girl who went through cult abuse—Indian, American, Americans of Indian descent—notion of “good” men blistered and erupted and oozed out like a pus. There were men who were animals. And then there were men who let them be. In India and abroad.

Slowly all places where women congregated became spaces of listening. That poetess-activist. Women who visited women’s resource centre and them who walked for “Take Back the Night” annual marches. Till the classroom itself became a space to come out. I remember December month as I sat with my sheets, evaluating final presentations of my public speaking students, when she got up to speak. A lovely, intelligent, alert and chirpy girl who confused me by being inexplicably absent for periods of time and who sometimes didn’t care to submit her assignments, a girl who deserved an A and yet weirdly stayed hovering between a B and C grade. She took stage and broke into a rap, a rap that shattered silences, of a continuous refrain—wasn’t my no a No? I still remember her, hands cutting through the air, voice increasing in fervour and tremor, bellowing from hidden depths, as the rhythm of her words slowly crumbled into a sad monosyllable—no.  

In case you are wondering--he was not a stranger.

There must be good men who sit, stand and walk with us. There must be. Pardon me. I don’t know who you are. Even if I have loved you, I don’t know if you were, are, will be a good man.

In my court, you are guilty until proven otherwise.

[Gratitude to the sisters who shared their courage, their feisty spirits, as they did their vulnerabilities and fears, and their healing processes. This accidental documenter hopes to convert your learnings to wisdom for those who still live in the shadows of silence. Forgive my failings in the process.]

[Please refer to Voices for Damini Initiative for more articles on sexual violence]