I Bad Touched Her

Pune 1999 (On an unfortunate weekend post-midnight):

On an eerie calm night, there were screeching sounds of shoe souls engaging in frictional feud with the pitch-black roads. My tender arms were in pain – the nerves and bones were squabbling underneath the several year's old skin, the optic nerve was having unwanted visions, the voice box choking and the heart-pounding against the chest.

Two men were dragging me to a place I was not willing to go. Two men – one in beige, more like brown and the other in a brow frown. One of them was masked and the other was visibly grinning – they caught me. They caught the criminal.

I was begging all the time to let me go, to give me one chance of compensating for my mistake but they kept on dragging me, ruthlessly. 

Amidst the pleading, grieving and policing, I heard footsteps other than ours. There was an intrusive woman, hastily approaching us with a baton in her hand and making oblique statements regarding what will be my punishment for the sin I have done - that can neither be undone nor condoned. 

I had committed a crime that could not be solved within the walls of my house. They kept on insisting me to spill out the truth as it is and I kept on urging them to let go of me because what I did wasn't having any obscene intention. 

"I just wanted to check why she was having abdominal pain," I said, hesitantly. 

Suddenly, all three of them looked at me with utmost attention in their eyes. They wanted my confession.

"Didn't you hit her? Why did you hit her?" 

The female in uniform was having a shrill voice and she was shouting at the top of her lungs. I was shaky. I was panicking.

I closed my eyes in terror and tried to trace back the incident that happened few hours back, based on the superimposition of playfulness, pestering and physical touch. 

I was a doctor and Pom decided to visit my clinic because she was suffering from abdominal pain.

After a long question-answer session, I told her to lift her dress up so that I can use the stethoscope to detect what is the origin of her pain. She refused to lift her dress because she said she wasn't comfortable doing this in a clinic full of other patients. But I kept on insisting her because the other patients like Diksha, Akram and Shubham were already our friends. So I wasn't really understanding what was the big deal in showing me her stomach in front of them. She kept on saying no. I kept on saying yes. After a long session of quarreling and in the heat of the moment, I took the stethoscope and pushed it hard against her stomach - so hard that she started crying and threatened to tell this incident to her mother. I got so scared that I came back home without dealing with other patients waiting in my clinic.

I was stressed. I couldn't eat well. I couldn't sleep well.

"I bad touched her. I bad touched her," I kept on murmuring. 

The six years old me assumed it was a bad touch because my mother had already taught me one line - A touch that makes a child uncomfortable, nervous or afraid is a bad touch. And whenever and wherever you experience this, please let us know.

The six years old me assumed it was a bad touch because Pom was clearly uncomfortable that day. 

Finally, I woke up from the nightmare - sweaty and jittery. I also realised that the police isn't dragging me to their station for punishment. 

As soon as the sun came out, I ran to Pom's house with one handwritten note saying - I'm sorry.