The Exhibition centres have always been a favorite. The whole display of handcrafted jewellery, the artists putting to fine details their inspiration behind the oil-paintings and the charcoal sketches, and the captivating warmth around bumping into old acquaintances: I love dressing up to such events.
It hadn't been long when we met at one of the crockery stalls, Asha and I. A middle-aged woman, mesmerizingly justifying her nine yards of 'Banarasi Silk' draped graciously around, I almost curbed the urge of telling her how my Dad would have loved to meet her, given her striking resemblance to Rekha Ji. We immediately connected over our love for words and voices. And the next moment I know, she texts me the address of the venue I'm supposed to go visit as she would want me to host an event. She insists I should not give it a miss, not even for my love of sleep or some cosy self-admiring weekday sessions for this new home I was about to shift to, not even for my happening office commitments I was really looking forward to.
So, there I was, two weeks later, looking sharp and lost in my blue & white business suit. Maa says I look good in white and that I should keep some portions of it on, for all my big days, as a lucky charm. My mother has a degree in Psychology and right through childhood, I have always admired this profession and secretly dreamt of being able to host one of their Conclaves or Summits or Conferences someday. Today was the time.
I couldn't have been more honored to be a part of this Conclave which saw panelists like Amit Abraham, Sudhir Kakar and Asha.
Asha. Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology.
Dr. Asha, the woman who looked like Rekha Ji.
After the 3 hour panel discussion dissolved for it's first break, I just instincitvely rushed to hug her. We became close friends after that.
She insisted I call her Asha, and not Ma'am or Aunty.
I made her agree to calling her 'Dr. A', she said, "I know you want this title for yourself someday. This will be a good reminder to keep working towards it."
I would be frequent to Asha's clinic whenever she would be in town, and almost unapologetic about keeping her away from meetings due to our phone conversations, or Whatsapp.
Asha loved exploring the crockery, every corner of the world she would travel. However, like one typical Indian, she would always leave it at bargaining. She said she keeps no crockery at home because the empty sounds of dishes and plates hurt her. By now, I could tell there's much more to her than what she portrays, I had no option other than waiting for her to disclose her story, I was much younger.
At 43, Asha is pretty much living her life out of her ambitions and desires. She looked happy, I would try asking her why she doesn't consider marrying again now that it's been 11 years since her husband died. She just let that suggestion pass everytime. I got to know why.
Asha was married to a businessman at 20. Coming with a family background of Professors and Educationalists, Asha wanted to pursue her Career ahead. What turned out instead was something common in Indian household, her husband didn't agree. In 1995, there wasn't much she could do about it except wait for the inflicted cries of manlihood on her to fade out so that she could bear some more the next day. She would bleed to unconsciousness in bed and beg him to let go, he would call her names and bring her to the oven flames and throw crockery at her and force sex.
Asha bore children 6 times and none of them survived.
She says she lived a life of prostitution and slavery for 12 years, except she wasn't even paid for it.
So, one fine day when she got a call informing her husband met with a spot death in a drunk driving case, she didn't even go to fetch his body and perform the last rituals.
She fled the city.
Dr. Asha today is a famous Psychologist. What she's made out of her life is commendable. She says her primary aim is to get penalised in India what she suffered everyday for 12 years: Marital Rape.
The UN Population Fund states that more than 2/3rds of married women in India, aged between 15 to 49 have been beaten, raped or forced to provide sex.
In the present day, studies indicate that between 10 and 14% of married women are raped by their husbands: the incidents of marital rape soar from 1/3rd to ½ among clinical samples of battered women.
Sexual assault by one’s spouse accounts for approximately 25% of rapes committed.
Article 2 of the Declaration of the Elimination of Violence against Women includes marital rape explicitly in the definition of violence against women.
While marital rape gets documented in hospitals, cases are rarely registered, since it is excluded from the India Penal Code’s (IPC) definition of rape, says an analysis by Dilaasa, a counselling centre based out of K.B. Bhabha Hospital in Bandra.
Sometime back, when Union Minister Maneka Gandhi said that even if there was a law against marital rape, women won’t report it, doctors and counsellors point out that Ms. Gandhi may not be off the mark, but that she missed the complete picture. Nayreen Daruwalla, director with Sneha’s Program on Prevention of Violence against Women and Children, said, “They do not report [marital rape] directly, but talk about it along with the other problems they face, such as husband not giving money."
What's extremely disgusting to each of our self-pride and worth is the scenario where we are ready to attack anybody who questions the rights of women to dress appropriately so that we could prevent rapes in India, however, most of us won't even accept that Marital Rape makes for 25% of the total rapes committed. Let alone the men, as women, we are just not aware of this term. In our heads, marriage is an institution, just like religion or education. Therefore, how can anything that's under the cover of marriage not be legal? How can unconsented physical relation not be sacred?
Each of us is fighting numerous battles, and nobody has the right to judge anyone for the account of their behavior.
But are we not going to understand if a child see his father forcing his mother into bed without her agreeing to it, are we/are we not helping raise a potential future rapist here?
Rape is a crime, we agree. While we celebrate our Independence Day on one hand and we drown into the news of a school girl being raped on her way to her school's Independence Day celebrations, we do feel we haven't inched closer to be able to deserve freedom.
Aged women being raped, married women and teenage girls, men being raped, infants and pregnant women being raped: It's time we move beyond the discussions on 'how to prevent rapes' to 'how to prevent the growth of rapist minds.' Those filthy brains are nourshing themselves somewhere, someplace watching rapes in the sacred pretexts of marriage happen.
Let's begin with accepting the existence of Marital Rape, let us not support it, let us help cut down on building rapists, let us get it penalised.
Let's live the duty we owe to ''the India.''
It hadn't been long when we met at one of the crockery stalls, Asha and I. A middle-aged woman, mesmerizingly justifying her nine yards of 'Banarasi Silk' draped graciously around, I almost curbed the urge of telling her how my Dad would have loved to meet her, given her striking resemblance to Rekha Ji. We immediately connected over our love for words and voices. And the next moment I know, she texts me the address of the venue I'm supposed to go visit as she would want me to host an event. She insists I should not give it a miss, not even for my love of sleep or some cosy self-admiring weekday sessions for this new home I was about to shift to, not even for my happening office commitments I was really looking forward to.
So, there I was, two weeks later, looking sharp and lost in my blue & white business suit. Maa says I look good in white and that I should keep some portions of it on, for all my big days, as a lucky charm. My mother has a degree in Psychology and right through childhood, I have always admired this profession and secretly dreamt of being able to host one of their Conclaves or Summits or Conferences someday. Today was the time.
I couldn't have been more honored to be a part of this Conclave which saw panelists like Amit Abraham, Sudhir Kakar and Asha.
Asha. Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology.
Dr. Asha, the woman who looked like Rekha Ji.
After the 3 hour panel discussion dissolved for it's first break, I just instincitvely rushed to hug her. We became close friends after that.
She insisted I call her Asha, and not Ma'am or Aunty.
I made her agree to calling her 'Dr. A', she said, "I know you want this title for yourself someday. This will be a good reminder to keep working towards it."
I would be frequent to Asha's clinic whenever she would be in town, and almost unapologetic about keeping her away from meetings due to our phone conversations, or Whatsapp.
Asha loved exploring the crockery, every corner of the world she would travel. However, like one typical Indian, she would always leave it at bargaining. She said she keeps no crockery at home because the empty sounds of dishes and plates hurt her. By now, I could tell there's much more to her than what she portrays, I had no option other than waiting for her to disclose her story, I was much younger.
At 43, Asha is pretty much living her life out of her ambitions and desires. She looked happy, I would try asking her why she doesn't consider marrying again now that it's been 11 years since her husband died. She just let that suggestion pass everytime. I got to know why.
Asha was married to a businessman at 20. Coming with a family background of Professors and Educationalists, Asha wanted to pursue her Career ahead. What turned out instead was something common in Indian household, her husband didn't agree. In 1995, there wasn't much she could do about it except wait for the inflicted cries of manlihood on her to fade out so that she could bear some more the next day. She would bleed to unconsciousness in bed and beg him to let go, he would call her names and bring her to the oven flames and throw crockery at her and force sex.
Asha bore children 6 times and none of them survived.
She says she lived a life of prostitution and slavery for 12 years, except she wasn't even paid for it.
So, one fine day when she got a call informing her husband met with a spot death in a drunk driving case, she didn't even go to fetch his body and perform the last rituals.
She fled the city.
Dr. Asha today is a famous Psychologist. What she's made out of her life is commendable. She says her primary aim is to get penalised in India what she suffered everyday for 12 years: Marital Rape.
The UN Population Fund states that more than 2/3rds of married women in India, aged between 15 to 49 have been beaten, raped or forced to provide sex.
In the present day, studies indicate that between 10 and 14% of married women are raped by their husbands: the incidents of marital rape soar from 1/3rd to ½ among clinical samples of battered women.
Sexual assault by one’s spouse accounts for approximately 25% of rapes committed.
Article 2 of the Declaration of the Elimination of Violence against Women includes marital rape explicitly in the definition of violence against women.
While marital rape gets documented in hospitals, cases are rarely registered, since it is excluded from the India Penal Code’s (IPC) definition of rape, says an analysis by Dilaasa, a counselling centre based out of K.B. Bhabha Hospital in Bandra.
Sometime back, when Union Minister Maneka Gandhi said that even if there was a law against marital rape, women won’t report it, doctors and counsellors point out that Ms. Gandhi may not be off the mark, but that she missed the complete picture. Nayreen Daruwalla, director with Sneha’s Program on Prevention of Violence against Women and Children, said, “They do not report [marital rape] directly, but talk about it along with the other problems they face, such as husband not giving money."
What's extremely disgusting to each of our self-pride and worth is the scenario where we are ready to attack anybody who questions the rights of women to dress appropriately so that we could prevent rapes in India, however, most of us won't even accept that Marital Rape makes for 25% of the total rapes committed. Let alone the men, as women, we are just not aware of this term. In our heads, marriage is an institution, just like religion or education. Therefore, how can anything that's under the cover of marriage not be legal? How can unconsented physical relation not be sacred?
Each of us is fighting numerous battles, and nobody has the right to judge anyone for the account of their behavior.
But are we not going to understand if a child see his father forcing his mother into bed without her agreeing to it, are we/are we not helping raise a potential future rapist here?
Rape is a crime, we agree. While we celebrate our Independence Day on one hand and we drown into the news of a school girl being raped on her way to her school's Independence Day celebrations, we do feel we haven't inched closer to be able to deserve freedom.
Aged women being raped, married women and teenage girls, men being raped, infants and pregnant women being raped: It's time we move beyond the discussions on 'how to prevent rapes' to 'how to prevent the growth of rapist minds.' Those filthy brains are nourshing themselves somewhere, someplace watching rapes in the sacred pretexts of marriage happen.
Let's begin with accepting the existence of Marital Rape, let us not support it, let us help cut down on building rapists, let us get it penalised.
Let's live the duty we owe to ''the India.''
