Annoying Rumours about India

6-->> What the hell is happening?!

She was 27, and at home.

She stood in front of the mirror, naked. She looked at her breasts. This was the biggest they had ever been. But she knew that they were going to get bigger. She stared at herself for a long while before she ran her right hand across the entire area of her belly, from just above her abdomen, all the way down to its lower end. It looked bloated and the bump had begun to show through her clothes now. She was five months pregnant, and had just received her scans from her gynecologist. She had dreaded this moment would come right from when she turned into a teenager. And 15 years later, she still wasn’t been prepared for it.

“You are going to have a healthy and beautiful baby girl. You just have to keep eating healthy, and get good sleep and sufficient exercise, just like you have been doing so far.” The gynec’s voice rang in her head.

*****

She was 9, and had gone to visit her second cousins who lived in Chennai.

This was her first visit to a metropolitan city and she was all excited. She decided that it would be the best and the most memorable summer vacation ever. Yes, she was innocent enough to believe she could have an amazing summer in the hot and humid Chennai. She was to live with her grandmother’s sister and her family. Her grandmother’s sister was an extremely fun person to be with. She spoke to her in English, which was a very cool thing for grandmothers to do, and also gifted her, her first video game. Super Mario Bros. Oh God! She was in love with this vacation.

One evening, everyone in the house decided to go saree shopping to Sundari Silks in T-Nagar. They didn’t want to take her along since the women knew they would take forever, and taking a young girl along would mean they had to take short breaks to take her to the bathroom, or feed her idlis if she got hungry. So they let her stay back at home and play Super Mario. Her uncle stayed back to child-sit her.

She was engrossed in the game when he came and sat next to her. He looked at her for a while and suggested that he could help her play better. He came over her shoulders, put his hands around her neck, and held her hands and the video game remote, and began to teach her how to play. She got the trick instantly. He stood behind her shoulders and continued to watch her. Then, he slowly slid his hands down and began to massage her breasts. She was shocked, and uncomfortable. Her breasts had just started to grow. They were very small and she was always in some sort of a mild pain as they grew. That entire year. So when her uncle did that, it hurt her more. She didn’t understand what that meant, she was very young. But she just felt that it wasn’t right. She felt violated, shameful, and very, very scared. She didn’t know how to react. She just took his hand, pushed it away and said nothing. Her uncle then came around and sat on her left, and put his hand around her right shoulder, pushed her right arm aside, and began to squeeze her right breast, hard. She was in real pain. The sad part was she didn’t know what was happening to her, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do, and she didn’t know if she should talk to her mom about this. All she knew was that it felt dirty. Yes, very dirty.

She decided that she would never visit Chennai again. A few years later, she realized that she was molested for the first time in her life, and that she wouldn’t be able to forget it for a lifetime. She made sure she never saw that uncle in her life ever again. Every family gathering she attended, she made sure he wasn’t attending. She loathed him from the core of her heart.

*****

She was 15, and in a temple near Bangalore.

Her family had gone to visit a very odd and old Shiva temple. The shrine was underground in a cave that was half-filled with water. One had to walk through the waters for at least 1000 feet to reach the end of the cave where the deity had been installed. Two priests would accompany each family, walk them across the waters, perform the pooja, and escort them back to land. The entire group consisting of the two priests, and her mother, father, brothers, and a few cousins entered the cave. She was the shortest and the youngest in the group. The water in the cave came up to her neck making it really difficult for her to walk. Her mother came to help her, but the priest suggested that the water-walking was a routine for them, and that the group should continue walking while he took care of her. Her mother trusted him. So he held her right hand in his left hand under the water, and he had a basket with the pooja stuff in his right hand that he held above the water since he didn’t them to get wet. He was patient as she struggled to walk.

She felt a pinch on her waist, on her right. She thought it must have been a water bug and continued to pace slowly. There was a tickle on her waist that slowly moved up to her breasts. It took her 30 seconds to figure out that the priest was groping her body parts randomly and pinching them, all under the water and nobody could see that. It hurt, again. This time she knew what was happening to her but she didn’t know what to do. They reached the shrine. The priest moved forward, conducted the pooja, and blessed everyone there. She was disgusted beyond imagination. What a hypocrite, she thought, and cried from within. While returning, he offered to walk her back. She gave him a “spit on your face, you sick, son-of-a-bitch” look and went along with her mother. What troubled her was that she never had the guts to discuss these things with her parents. She felt cheated because her parents never told her that such things could happen to a girl. Was this normal? If yes, then why did she always feel like tearing away the violated skin, and why did she feel so disrespected and defiled.

*****

She was 21, and at a multiplex in Mumbai.

She had always loved Bombay. She saw herself visit the city and go on a shopping spree in her dreams every fortnight. She had always loved her Bombay friend’s flip-flops, ear-rings, and shawls. So when her Bombay friend called her to visit the now Mumbai, she went frenzy.

One rainy evening, after she had spent hundreds of rupees on buying beautiful accessories, she and her friend went to the Infiniti Mall to watch Rang De Basanti. Aamir Khan was her favorite actor and she was excited. During the intermission, she and her friend went to buy some popcorn and coke. She stood in the queue, and her friend stood behind her. After a while in the line, her friend said, “This man behind me is weird. He is hard and is rubbing it against me.” This time, she knew what it was, and what to do. She pulled her friend aside, and yelled at him, “Hello, mister! What are you trying to do? Do think you can do anything to girls and they will shut up? You bloody molester! I will call the police. Go and shag at home, you looser.” The man fled. Nobody came to her rescue. Nobody cared. People were just glad that one man left the line and that meant that they would get their popcorn sooner. She and her friend couldn’t sit through the rest of the film. “I just want to go home and shower. I feel horrible.”, she said. They left the theater.