Wounds of Childhood - Part 2

Part 2

http://varthabharati.erelego.com/viewpage.php?edn=Sunday+Magazine&date=2019-06-30&edid=VARTABARTI_SUN&pn=4&fbclid=IwAR1m6ecXBMINDUfrfQ-0OxZDBHW395mnRT_BaBCfh-h8xwKwQxmBn5RzhDQ#Page/4/Article/VARTABARTI_SUN_20190630_4_3/320px/174F41C

Wounds of Childhood - Part 1

I am thrilled to share with you my article published in Varthabharati news paper.

Kimari is a child sexual abuse survivor. Now, a 35-year-old woman, when she looks back at her life, she wonders why she was abused. She knows that nothing she did was/could be the reason for it. She believes her situation made her an easy prey, made her susceptible to abuse. She has narrated her childhood and early adulthood incidents to connect the dots, to find reasons. She thinks along with the abuse; the inability to understand what was going on, the inability to share it and the complicated situation she was in, made it hard for her to deal with it, recover from it and rehabilitate. She believes her struggles are worth if any child in her situation or any parent who thinks like her parents can get benefited by reading her story.

She wishes that her writing reaches as many people as possible.

I have narrated her story in Kannada and it is being published in Varthabharati news paper. Here is a link for all Kannada readers:

http://varthabharati.erelego.com/viewpage.php?edn=Sunday+Magazine&date=2019-06-23&edid=VARTABARTI_SUN&pn=4&fbclid=IwAR24hsKjygoX9Vza1uCKC9PCDBzgc6CNvl0f3AGYBvSWYsVQX0yo6y7JMo4#Page/4/Article/VARTABARTI_SUN_20190623_4_3/320px/16C4ADB

Inhuman Sexual Behaviors

I am utterly disturbed since yesterday afternoon. When I am busy, these thoughts won’t bother me, but as soon as I am free, only this thing runs in my head. What is happening? Why?

Yesterday afternoon I started reading my favorite magazine “omanase”. In the counseling section of the magazine, a lady writes about her problem. The problem is, her husband, who is a professor, is a womanizer, he has slept with anything that is called a female, and he sleeps with his daughters too. His daughters are so addicted that they call him to bed too. This not just when they were 13 and did not know what was going on, but also when they are grown up, married and have kids. How is this even possible? How can I digest this? This is a true story and I mean, what the hell?

I tell this to a friend of mine who gives me 2 such cases in a minute, a man, who sleeps with his mom and sister and another one who sleeps with a lot of females including his aunt (dad’s sister).

What happened to “a husband and wife should have sex only when they desire to have a baby, else restrain from such activities” the sages story? Well, I agree that is very old school. We moved from that to unlimited sex and birth control, to having sex before marriage with the one whom you are going to marry, to unfaithful marriages and affairs, to having sex with an attractive person when you desire, to separating sex from love, to open marriage,s to one night stands. But this? Having sex with father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, aunt, I mean, isn’t it worse than animals?

You might say it’s a one in a million case. I have not done any research on this topic but 2 examples for one story I narrate, I mean, it has to be a one in a hundred case then! How else can the math work?

Where are we losing our values? Where is it going wrong in the system? My stomach hurts when I read this and feel sorry, restless and helpless. What weirdness is this?

What do I do? How can this be corrected? How can we bring in values to lives? How can we identify such people and give them proper advise, medication, counseling and cure them? This is an illness, a problem, a disorder.

I am still speechless and lost in the whirl of these thoughts.

Sowmyashree Gonibeedu

Groping – the Menace

As we have progressed, I think people have found new ways to abuse women, new ways to hurt physically, mentally and emotionally. If I were to write about everything I have heard, seen, witnessed or gone through, then I can make another blog on it or make it a series. Well, I do plan to make a series on sexual and other form of abuses though. That’s another day’s discussion, another day’s plan. Now, let’s come back and focus on groping.

The definition on the internet and Wikipedia say it is a form of molestation. A body part is pressed, pinched or rubbed against, without the consent of the person is called groping. You will find a lot of information on what groping is, how it is considered in different countries and so on, on the internet. Well, information is good, but when you are actually in the situation, that is when you will know how it actually feels to be groped.

It’s done in seconds. You are in a crowded place and a hand appears from nowhere and presses your breast. By the time you realize what happened and turn back to see who did it; the person would have vanished in the crowd. Sometimes you get to see his face, or grab his hand to hurt him.

You feel angry, frustrated, agitated, helpless, scared, there is a rush of lot of emotions. You probably try to hit him if you get a chance or otherwise you walk off like nothing happened. Does a lump in your throat appear just as you go through this that you fail to scream, you fail to make it public. Or do you fear that even if you scream, no one cares, no one helps and you think you will be embarrassed?

Why do people do this? Grope? What does one get by this? I have a list of questions actually! Is it an illness? Can this behavior be corrected? Is it based on the upbringing, or is it a mental condition, what is it? Why do people do this? Should one be punished or taken to a doctor?

I think I will hear voices which will say punish them. Getting physical the only form of reaction to such an incident and hit them hard and hurt them so that before they think of groping someone else, they will think 1000 times. However, I think, if they had it in them to think, why would they be doing anything like this? I don’t know. I have heard people tell me they punched that “beeped word” in their face, hit him, hurt him. Yes, you get your anger out, but will that make any difference? Will that make that person not do it again?

Can this be taken to the police? I don’t know this either. Will they take complaint on groping seriously? Or the person who went to complain has to face embarrassment? I don’t know. Would you tell this to your father, brother or husband? Would you tell this to your best buddy? Your girl? What would you do if this happens to you?

This might be going too far, but I think police, psychiatrists/psychologists/counselors and a bunch of young people, in cooperation, should form teams to catch these gropers and get them to the right path. I won’t worry about me, but I worry about my little sister, my best friend, my mom or my daughter who would have to face this. I want to feel safe for me, for them and I want them to feel safe as well. There has to be a way out, it might be case by case basis but there will be things that will be common.

How can we cure this illness from our society?

Sowmyashree Gonibeedu