CROSS ROADS
You don’t know my name. You also do not know what I look like. And Mama told me that it is for the better. By any means, you are not interested in knowing who I am. But trust me, while being broken, Mama is eternally grateful to all of you and to the one who dishonoured my dignity.
I am a girl from a small town, called Mattan in district Anantnag.
When I was nine years old, my parents sent me to the local Imam’s house to learn the word of God. The local Imam, instead of teaching me the sacred word of God, decided to show me the devilish acts of Satan.
Since then, simple daily rituals have become so severely agonizing. Pain which seems to hide itself behind the necessary necessities of life while it reminds me of those terrifying days whenever my heavy breaths warn me that I am still alive.
It started when I was eleven while I was alone at his house with him to learn divine teachings and his wife had gone to a relative of hers. That lonely, paralyzed, mute moment when he touched me for the first time with his ugly lust is only punctuated by the subsequent moments in which he grew bolder and I was culpable of becoming docile.
I had to endure everything. From being touched inappropriately to being raped savagely.
There are moments when I suddenly burst into tears. At times I feel so abhorred of myself that it makes me want to cut every inch of my body which he grabbed. Perhaps, this flesh of mine should be ripped apart and cut into pieces of meat before it could sew back my unsuspecting childhood.
Today, I am fifteen years old and whenever I am alone, my mind dwells to those torturous spells which continued at least twice a week for four long years, and I abruptly start panicking and pulling my hair while biting my arm.
He was my teacher. I trusted him.
I still remember his hideous face with that ghastly smile whenever he would latch onto me like a ferocious animal while peeling off my clothes and tattering me with his venomous stenchy existence.
The very sight of a man, any man, turns my stomach. As if I will vomit blood.
Somehow, after four horrific years, I gathered the courage to tell Mama, which has made me, for lack of a better word, pragmatic.
Mama told me that I had been lucky as I could have been molested by someone else. A drug-addict, businessman, policeman, non-local labourer, army man or just any other random man whom the neighbours, village and society at large would be unwilling to shield. She also said that by virtue of the society protecting this culprit, who was a respected Imam and led prayers in the mosque, I and our whole family had been saved from the wrath of humiliation.
Apparently, the rapist is equally significant as the raped one, if not more.
At least, in my case.
Mama also reminded me that I was a girl. And in Kashmir, male-chauvinism and patriarchy ruled the roost.
She tried explaining it, “Haven’t you noticed that all our relatives and neighbours who do not have a son, have long rows of daughters and sometimes at the end of such a row of daughters, there is one son which only bears witness to the fact how persistent the parents have been in realizing their preferred offspring. My child, you are a girl. You must start to understand these things. Beta, you are getting older now, don’t you see that all the daughters of your uncles married as soon as they completed their matriculation or higher secondary, while your own brother and cousin brothers went to Anantnag, Srinagar and even Jammu for higher studies. The same happened to your friend from across the street, Haniya, who got married after failing twice in the 9th class”, she said.
“Baba cares for you and tries to give you everything you want, but at dinner you and I can only choose what to eat after your brother is presented with the juiciest piece of meat or chicken. You study, but you also must start doing more household chores now. You must possess all traits of becoming a good wife and a good daughter-in-law. You are a girl and you must uphold the honour of the family”, she said firmly.
Mama told me that in Kashmir the reality is that there is a disproportionate distribution of liberties among men and women and because of that there exists a set of gender-based discriminatory rules of punishment if the parameters of those liberties are surpassed. She explained that the sooner I would accept this reality, the better it would be for me and my future life.
“You can’t fight it, my girl. When a girl gets raped, everyone blames the girl, and that forces her and her family into silence. Especially if it is done by an Imam! This is how it has always been and this is how it always will be”, she said.
I had the feeling that she tried to condone what happened to me by saying that if I had been molested by a drug-addict, businessman, policeman, non-local labourer, army man or just any other random man instead of an Imam, the whole of Kashmir would have been willing to lay down each and every Kashmiri life to punish the culprit. Then, the fact that I was molested by someone whom many would like to pin down because of various personal, religious or political motives, would have turned me into a victim.
She clarified that in Kashmir it was normal to distinguish between right and wrong on the basis of religion, nationality, political affiliations, social status, caste, influence and what not. This had made us believe that injustice and atrociousness had a face, a name and a God. Depending on that face, the name and the God, we either remain silent or choose to speak.
“Don’t worry. Everything will be fine. Have faith in Allah. Nobody in the neighbourhood talks about it. Nobody wants to know. You will get married when you grow up and you won’t even remember all of this”, she assured me.
“Accusing a man which we all found pious enough to become the Imam of the mosque of our neighbourhood, would not raise questions about him, but about you. Everyone will call you a liar, unchaste and immodest, and us bad parents. Even if the police would have caught him red-handed or there would have been video evidence which cannot be denied, it would not have guaranteed you justice and him punishment. Dozens of religious bodies and Imams like him would be up in arms to defend the culprit and call it a conspiracy against Islam as such a thing would disturb their businesses. Many of them are all part of the same ecosystem”.
Mama continued, “Nobody, even for once, would think of you, my girl”.
Mama sighed, “My child, did we ever think about those girls who were raped by Mujahideen. Even today, nobody talks about it while it has become a routine practice for these Mujahideen to take advantage of Kashmiri girls in the worst possible manners. While these Mujahideen should have been castrated, it was the girls who were forced to commit abortion. Nobody condemns these men. Nobody wants to speak about the fact that all these Mujahideen have ruined the lives of thousands of young naïve Kashmiri girls. Today, instead of lynching these bastards, many of whom are amongst us, all of us only condemn the girls if any of them dares to speak out about it. We collectively abuse them and refer to these poor girls as whores”.
Mama went further and explained that if something like this would come out in the open, I would be pressurized to lie, and our family would be intimidated to save the honour of the neighbourhood, village and Islam. Neighbours, relatives and acquaintances would be approached and used to dispute my statement. Everybody would see my face. Instead of being the victim, I would be treated as the culprit. I would be considered guilty of accusing a respectable Imam. I would have to prove my innocence by evidencing my rape in police stations, hospitals, in the media and at every square in the city where I would be raped over and over again.
It was a battle not worth fighting according to Mama.
She reassured me again by saying that soon I will forget everything. Soon, this all would seem like a distant bad dream.
Mama continued, “We have been very lucky. Imagine, if someone would know. Many in the village have come to know about his character years ago, but nobody dares to speak about it. There are many more girls who have endured the same. But nobody says anything. And why would you ruin your and our reputation? You should never tell anyone”.
It was raining outside.
Not heavily. Small soft drops.
I could hear the raindrops falling. Like the sound of a ticking clock.
I tried not to cry.
At least not louder than the falling raindrops.
It seemed as if time had come to a standstill, while the raindrops kept ticking on the window.
For the first time this evening, I removed my head from Mama’s lap. I looked at her slender hands, while tears rolled down my face. Instinctively, she brought her hands to my cheeks in an attempt to wipe my tears.
I detested pulling my hair. I hated the nightmares which did not let me sleep. I disgusted my being and the man who did this to me.
I stared at her bereft face and asked, “Mama, it means I preserved my dignity by getting raped by an Imam”?
Sobbingly, she nodded and pressed my head into her bosom.
You and I both know that she lied.
(The Author is the Director of European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS) and can be reached at: j.qureshi@efsas.org)
