The Dirty Touch.

Dear Mumma,
There are two kinds of touch you had taught me since I was a toddler; a good one and a bad one.

The good ones I had in plenty but the latter ones I had never known, until yesterday.

A chill ran through me, as I could feel the coldness of an unknown touch down my bare back, beneath the new kameez I had worn. It was my best friend’s birthday, and I was excited to get a gift for her; that coldness ruined it all.

I turned around quickly and saw his tobacco stained teeth grinning back at me. As if he was proud of his achievement, as if touching me was a game, and he had won at it. He knew the helplessness of a 13-year-old.

I started feeling numb and giddy. My feet were quick though, and I ran from the gift shop as fast as I could. The good thing was that I bought the gift.

However, I was not feeling good maa; everything turned bleak. I was shivering from inside. I reached our housing society premises.Just then I could feel someone following me. I turned and saw the same man walking casually towards me, he passed by me, but this time grazed through my arm.I could feel him smile.

I wanted to hit him, to scream at him, to stop him but to my dismay, I could do nothing but be terrified. I returned home sweaty and dejected. The dejection was because of myself. I felt filthy and unclean. It felt I was at fault because I might have done something to invite him, his touch - A dirty touch.

I was wearing good clothes maa; it was a salwar kameez, just the way daadimaa had told me, but still he touched me.

I don’t understand why he did that. Is it really my fault?

I am writing to you because I cannot gather enough courage to look in your eyes and talk. I have let you down maa, because dirty touches are only for dirty girls, right?

I hope you understand and forgive me, and I promise you that this will not happen again.

Love,
Your daughter.

Read the letter in her hands as she trembled with an unnamed feeling. How will she make her daughter understand that it was not her fault at all? It is the society, the sick mentality, the bad upbringing of such men and has nothing to do with her daughter, so pure and naive.

She rushed to her daughter’s room at once to comfort her, to tell her that dirty touches are definitely not for her brave girl!