She was as young as a 6th grader. Had recently
started to hit puberty and was experiencing the anxieties she couldn't
understand. She felt like she was losing herself to the constant don’t do this,
don’t do that of the society. She was confused, happy, anxious, sad, angry
everything at the same time. She felt dirty, clean, pretty, ugly everything
together. She was not an adult neither a kid any more, and this often put her
in the state of trance.
Summer vacations are always the time to have fun, enjoy,
visit new places and meet relatives. Like every year, this time she will be
meeting her uncles and aunts, and she was very excited about it. She was going
to meet her mom’s uncle and aunt and their family this year. She was meeting
them for the first time. She had packed a day before and was super excited to
leave the following morning. She had heard great stories about her uncle and
aunt, they had spent a great amount of time in a foreign country, and recently
their son had returned from abroad, Mom had told her he had brought lots of
chocolates for her. She had never expected that this visit will be so memorable
that the scenes from the two days she spent there, will haunt her all her life.
They had reached the house and hour back. She was introduced
to everyone there and was very happy with all the chocolates, games, gifts and
so much delicacies that was offered to her. Soon, she got bored of the constant
yapping of her mom and aunt. Noticing her boredom, her aunt asked her to go
inside and play on the computer for a while. You can’t imagine the happiness on
her face when her aunt mentioned COMPUTER. Those were the days when everyone
did not own a computer, and those who owned one were not allowed to sit and
play on them most of the times, as computers those days were only for work. She
jumped from her seat and went inside. While trying to figure out how to switch
on the computer, her uncle came to her rescue. A man in his 50s, sat beside her
while she was busy playing a game. Slowly made her sit in his lap, put his
hands around her waist, and in no time his hands were inside her t-shirt,
caressing her tiny growing breasts. She sat there in disgust, in confusion, in
pain for 15 long minutes, after which she just got up and went to her mother,
sat there in silence till dinner was served. The man continued to sit beside
her whenever he got a chance the entire evening, picking up magazines are
showing her images of scantily clad women, describing them to be sexy. She was
scared, could not move, could not utter a word, just wanted to run away from
that house and never return back.
That night she had a hard time sleeping. And as she got some
sleep, it was morning already. And to add to the horror and pain, as soon as
she opened her eyes she could feel that man’s hands inside her night-dress. She
could hear his voice, saying, “Beta, sleep, this will give you a nice sleep”.
She got up pushing him behind and went to her mother, asking her to leave from
that place at once. She kept throwing tantrums until her mom finally decided to
leave. The entire time her mom kept dismissing her tantrums by saying, “She is
very close to her father, can’t stay away from him even for a night you see”.
That incident still haunts her. She has kept quiet about it
for years together. That uncle is avoided in most of the family functions, by
most of her female cousins, probably because she was not the only victim.
