And yet, I don’t understand why every year at the end of April my parents invite the whole family for lunch. Mom says “family ko season ka first aam ka ras (we gujjus cant bear a summer without it) toh khilana padta hai na.” :’( and I’m always like “What the....???”.
Ideally in any family a get together means bade bado ke sath and bache bacho ke saath. But the sad thing for me I guess, was that I happened to be the youngest kid in family. And the next in line was 5 years older, leaving me all alone with none to play with!
So it was the same get together “mango” lunch for the so-called mango-crazy people. My school vacation had just started off and I was excited to enter the last year of my middle schooling (7th grade). I was 12 years old and as ignorant and innocent as any 12 year old could have been.
After lunch while everyone sat down chitchatting with each other in the drawing room, my elder cousin, who was I guess 19 years old back then in the context of a pakdapakdi game, dragged me into one of the rooms.
What happened next – I hadn’t imagined it in my wildest imaginations, the time froze and so did I. I was clueless. And the same thing continued for a span of 3 years. It took me that long really, to finally pull myself together and to reach a point where I could finally “disagree” or nod my “dissent”.
Finally when I went to college I got to know about the entire situation, I got to know that I am the victim or survivor of Child Sexual Abuse(CSA), the current laws of India, 2007’s report of UNICEF and Ministry of Women and Child Development - everything was just a mere disappointment.
Years passed and then I saw Harish on Richa Aniruddh’s show “Zindaji Live” on IBN7. I was glad and so happy to see that one person is trying to tell the world about the hidden reality of our society and more glad to see Harish for taking this courageous step of telling the world about it. Later in 2011 Onir comes up with the film “I am Abhimanyu” based on the life of Harish Iyer and Ganesh Nallari. And now Aamir Khan confronts the much taboo’ed topic in his show “Satyamev Jayate” leaving no stone unturned.
I would like to thank those people who are trying to make difference and on the whole making the country more humane.
Thank You Richa, it all started with you. It’s you who took the first step to tell India that her future is falling prey to “abuse”. Thank you so much for being such an inspiration for others.
Thank you Harish, nothing much to say, you have been there fighting for it for years and we are all proud of you.
Thank you Onir, for such a wonderful film.
Thank you Aamir for leaving the whole India deeply moved with the hidden reality of our families.
I am so sad to know that you have been through this! Child abuse is such a common incident in Indian households but people rarely talk about it! I was abused when I was in class 3 (8 years old) by a cousin. As you said, a child in that age gets very disturbed and clueless when such things happen. I went through severe mental trauma and skipped school for several days. No child should experience such things.
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