image courtesy: Blank Noise Project
To mark their one-year foray into the blog world, Blank Noise Project have decided to host a Blog-a-thon on the issue of street harassment. If you’d like to participate, send an email to blurtblanknoise@gmail.com before the 6th of March. Here's my entry, a story posted a year ago.
Tonight
It was just a few hours since she had been married and the excitement from the wedding ceremony had given way to an exhausted lull. She was sitting in the marriage hall surrounded by cousins and aunts. Her younger cousins were chatting away while the aunts were busy gossiping. Soon she would have to get ready for the evening reception. "So", began her aunt, "are you ready for tonight?". At this cue, the other women started shooing the kids away. This talk was not meant for their ears. The new bride lowered her eyes and pretended not to understand. "You know, it's going to be your first night. I am going to tell you something important" the older lady proceeded. So this is going to be sex education, the bride thought, bring it on.
"Do you know what happens on the first night?", another aunt quizzed. The newly-wed, feeling utterly embarrassed, did not answer. She was thinking about that time, when she was nine, when an uncle put his hands up her skirt. And how this went on for months. She remembered the time when an old man pressed himself against her in a crowded bus. She recalled the day when the college peon had exposed himself to her at the college lab. She pushed the thoughts away, lowered her eyes and nodded as the aunt proceeded to give a graphic and crude version of what she was to expect on her wedding night. There were giggles and chuckles all around.
16 comments:
In your tales there is a sudden turn around at the last moment which is mostly some negative or chilling revelation ... its like you are trying to tell the world that it is not as beautiful as it seems ...this writing style of your is becoming typical ... its almost a pattern now ...
Just an input to you and of course my personal opinion ... no bias .. keep it or chuck it ...
i have read that one before ammani.
A sad tale of delayed sex-education!!!!
i see that story as a need to educate kids on this topic!
hi ammani, visiting ur blog after a long time. marriage is the central point here again. hmm, the king of narration u gave, would scare any newly wedded bride. too realistic.
wonder if ANY girl / woman has been spared from such random crash courses...
angers me like...
and have also observed that these perpetrators are so over zealously protective of their own daughters...
@ monu: sad tale of delayed sex-education? no. sad tale of perveted minds exploiting the innocent.
ammani, i hadnt read this one. agree with the first anon post. this was chilling down to the spine in the second paragraph. i remember the movie "monsoon wedding" where shefali chayya has suffered this kind of exploitation at the hands of her uncle.
children are pearls of love and islands of innocence amidst faulting adults. and uncles are among the trusted members of the family. if this kinda thing happens, the whole trust idea vanishes from the fragile mind of the children! i hv heard of vile aunties stealing the innocence off young lads! both are equally noxious specimens that give the society its cruel side.
there was a story that ran in the latest edition of RD India. a girl did not report a molestation incident to her mom despite her mom asking (because there was not enough communication channels for children with parents) and years later, she wrote the same story under a fictitious name and won the best story award. when mom comes to know abt it, she kind of has a vague sense of where the story came from and asked her daughter who replies that it is the same one. mother feels very repentful. obviously.
today's parents need to be far more progressive than ever before. especially with girl children. they need to educate their children early on about what is appropriate and what is not. i m stopping at this, and not making it a preaching post on parenting.
@rubic cube
i said that in the sense that a child should know that it is not okay when someone touches you and you are not comfortable...
children are taught to be obedient and hence dont question the doings of elders...so small kids need to be told that it is ok to complain about some elder when the child is not comfortable but does not know what is being done to him/her
thats what i meant
sad tale.
@ monu: exactly the same thoughts. just jumpted the gun when i read your line, i guess.
well said ardra,
ammani.. i remember this one and it was one of the most compelling stuff i have ever read on the internet.
on a tangent something i saw on t.v. infuriated me to no end, looks like girls studing in some of the premium university have been asked to stop wearing "jeans , t-shirts"!! and that is offered as a solution for eve-teasing!!
bull fucking shit!!
if so how do they explain a 3 year old being raped by an uncle. was the child dressed up too provocatively.
how pathetic is that ?!! instead of treating the root of the problem ie the perverts the blame is now on the victims!!
liked your tale..its pretty true this so called child molestation..have you read this book blood memory by greg iles?you will have to...we will have to stop this nonsense and one nice way would be to talk it out so keep going..have not seen your email id anywhere try putting it somewhere
Everyone is up in arms when a child is molested. I agree with the shock and outrage. But I don't find as much disgust when it comes to other incidents ammani has written about.
"She remembered the time when an old man pressed himself against her in a crowded bus. She recalled the day when the college peon had exposed himself to her at the college lab"
Do you know that almost every girl I know has encountered these horror stories? If it is not the peon it is someone else.
I love sila neerangalil sila manithargal. Like another commenter said another case of delayed sex education.
deeply touched
Tilo,
By now, my dead dog knows you love 'sila Nerangalil sila manithargal'. Really.
completely agree with what monu says.. what a delayed sex education!!! It would have been better if they had wised her abt the crap that happens than give her the un-needed advice..
Read this somewhere?? mmm...
hi
How real the story is !!! How can i say so? Bcoz i can relate it to. It was long ago when it happened , i was still a small girl . But even then it haunts me now and then
Post a Comment