Social Issue Short Story – The Mask
Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com
It has been years since that heartless, ruthless incident shattered my life and I am still in trauma, I decided not to trust anyone at any point of time in life. Its always easy to say past is past , move on with your life, all fingers are not same … all these fancy sentences gave hope , but the hope and faith never lasted for a long duration.
Whenever I hear a discussion on child hood memories, which for 99% of the crowd brings a magical and priceless smile on the face but for me my childhood is something which I don’t want to think of thinking about, it always gave me the worst kind of fear, feeling of disgust and sea of tears and frustration. It destroyed the guts to speak or utter a word, they created a sort of invisible lump in my throat which stopped me from talking and made me completely blank.
A sort of guilt always made my heart heavy, the voice in my head went on accusing me for the series of events which took place in my childhood, but how can a 5 year old girl can tempt someone and be responsible for her own sexual assault which went on for years. In India if an assault of any kind happens to a female, 200% she is the only person to blame and she is the only person to suffer, whether the female is couple of months old or 70+ in age , she is the sole responsible person for whatever happens.
This brainless attitude is there with both educated and uneducated society of the country. But finishing one’s life is not the ideal solution. I belong to a typical middle class family where people are forced to run behind money to take care of the family and to fulfill their duties and responsibilities, we never had time in those days to see each other’s face.
On one of those busy days it happened, my sister came back from school and left me under the care of the house owner’s son, grandpa and neighbor; she said she will be back in an hour and went to her friend’s house. I went to room to grab my coloring book, suddenly I felt so heavy as if crushed under lorry and being ripped, I screamed in pain but they dumb folded and carried on with the act. Once my sister came I rushed to her and before I say anything they told that we were playing kabadi. She didn’t even listen to me and went on with her work.
I had no clue on what was happened to me , was it a game, if it’s a game I don’t want to be part of it anymore. This act was repeated every day and on one fine day I went to my parents who were busily getting ready for work, First I complained of stomach pain, they thought I am giving excuse for not going to school and they ignored, on the same day night I told I don’t want to play with anyone, they thought I am lazy and ignored. The next day when I narrated the entire story I can hear hmm hmm hmm that’s all and I realized they are not actually listening. I felt helpless and scared. Years passed in spite of all the efforts to safeguard myself I kept on failing and in my school I was bullied very badly.
Today none of those 3 are alive but I lost my sleep, courage, happiness everything. The responsibility of handling the family is now on my shoulder and I can’t let people know about my past or the fear which is killing me within ,to this moment I stammer within to say a word but no one has any clue about it , I wore the mask of young , vibrant, courageous bubbly girl in the town .
The largest count of mask wore by any species on this planet is human beings that too particularly female. It took me years to understand that a 5 year old child can never tempt a man to rape and I am not guilty.
Remember one thing every day thousands and thousands of people take bath in Ganges to get rid of the guilt they have done in life and mother Ganges washes them without any second thought, in spite of holding the impurities of this many crowd, she still holds the place of holy river in the planet.
We girls are like river Ganges and will remain pure.
Saying so I Akansha Malhotra concluded the session for young girls who are fighting to come out of the memories of their life’s tragic assault.
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