The Turmoil

  Childhood is the most beautiful and important phase of everyone's life. The good or bad experiences and incidents that one may come across during this period will be so profound and embedded in one's thoughts and psyche that will go on to shape their future life ahead. Few children unfortunately come across incidents that go on to create night mares for a long time to come or rather go. These incidents happen in such a way that the child never understands what is happening not he or she will be able to communicate and comprehend the whole matter. This is a real story about a girl who undergoes a lot of trauma for whatever happens around her within her home and the unfortunate thing is she was and is not able to confide all that to anyone and she never had anyone who would stand besides her and understand what she was going through. This might be the story of many young children whom we may not know even.            

         Nidhi a bright, beautiful young eight month old baby was traveling from Chennai to Bombay as her father who was unemployed had secured a good job after she was born. The family of three were traveling and the little girl was the cynosure of all eyes in the compartment. Her chubby cheeks, black curly hair and fair skin with black eyes was attractive indeed. As they reached Bombay which is Mumbai now they were received by her father's good friend who was already staying in Mumbai for the past few years. Nidhi was looking around with wide eyes and was giggling joyfully as the local train was taking them to the station they had to get down and reach Sudhir her father's friend's house. After another half hour of travel by the local bus they reached the place where they would stay for the coming few months.   .             Next day morning Sudhir:s wife Arya and Nidhi's mom Simi prepared breakfast. The men finished their breakfast and went out, this was to look out for a house on rent for Nidhi and her parents. The women got busy with their chatting and cooking lunch while Nidhi was put to sleep. By 5 in the evening both the men returned home with the news that Ansh(Nidhi's father) got the key of a comfortable apartment that was on rent and it was near to Sudhir's place too. A couple of days later Nidhi and her parents shifted to the new house. They got it cleaned and did a small puja which is customary and arranged their limited number of utensils etc The apartment was very small obviously as Nidhi's father was yet to join the new job and earn money to pay the rent. Simi was not educated and qualified even. She anyways had to look after the little girl and so life took on from there. Ansh was good at accounts and so he quickly got into the good books of the management and he was comfortable with his new job. Nidhi was pampered with lots of colourful toys, dresses, footwear and what not. Soon her mother got pregnant again and she gave birth to a boy who was cute like Nidhi. Life was going on well and in another years time Nidhi's mother gave birth to another baby boy thus making the family complete. Nidhi's father was into more avenues of earning. He started working in another company after the office hours finished in his main Office. He came very late in the night and left early in the morning making it almost impossible to spend time with his kids. Nidhi started going to school and in another years time her brother too joined her in the same school and after one more year her younger brother too was enrolled in the same school. Weekends were fun filled and enjoyable that was made possible because of her father who compensated for the time he could not spend with his kids throughout the week.            

  Fast forward, Nidhi was 13 years old and a good looking teenager. Her brothers too were smart and good looking. One Sunday morning as the children got up from bed they could hear their parents discussing about some relative who was to come and stay with them. They heard their mother arguing and not agreeing for that. Still Ansh was adamant and the children understood it was their paternal uncle who would be coming from a remote village of Tamil Nadu to stay along with them in Mumbai and search for a job. This news was so exciting to the children. They would spend time with their uncle and know many things about their grandfather's village and the customs over there. They still noticed that their mother was not in favour of this decision made by her husband. But, being children they did not get the real meaning of why their mother was against the decision made by her husband. A couple of days later the person in question that is their uncle turned up early in the morning. He seemed to be very tired after a long journey and so was left to take rest for some time. Being a Sunday they all would spend time leisurely. With this thought each got busy with their activities. His first appearance and looks were a bit hazy and laid back. But, the children thought it might be due to the journey he had. Around noon he got up and had his bath and opened his suitcase that seemed heavy with luggage. The children were curious to see what he had brought from his home town. They noticed few bottles (liquor)which the children did not know about. He gave them a packet of sweets and quickly closed his suitcase lest the childre oon ask what the bottle contained.  He had his lunch along with his brother that is Ansh and returned to the room that he would share with the children until further developments in his career and life. The children were happy that they would get to hear many incidents about his home town and his experiences. Everything was fine and going on smoothly, until one day that was going to change the entire life of Nidhi for a long long time.      

   After a month or so as usual all of them returned to the bedroom to go to sleep. Nidhi's brothers shared a bed and the uncle was given another cot to sleep and Nidhi had to sleep on a sofa com bed This had been the practice always. Suddenly in the midnight Nidhi woke up startled with fear as she felt something crawling on her legs upto her thighs. Scared and with a lot of fear she slowly opened her eyes to find a person bending over her. Since, the room was dark(the bed light was switched off)she was not able to recognise the face all the while thinking she was having a nightmare. Just then her brother got up to go to the toilet and she recognised the person as her uncle who very quickly jumped back on to his bed and covered himself from top to toe with his blanket. Nidhi was shocked and dumb and slowly got back to her pillow and slept with tears rolling down her cheeks and she fell asleep as it was past midnight.        

Next day in the morning she got up late with a severe headache but had to get ready to school. She was feeling listless and tired but when her mother questioned her as to why she was looking so tired Nidhi did not have an answer. How could she tell what she encountered last night. She tried to appear normal and avoided coming in front of her uncle even though she knew it would be impossible to avoid him for obvious reasons. Her uncle behaved as if everything was fine and Nidhi started doubting her own perception about the past night. She was in confusion whether what she saw the previous night was some sort of a hallucination or illusion. Soon this would be cleared with what transpired with Nidhi in the coming weeks. Her uncle would try to touch her inappropriately whenever he got a chance. Nobody felt it was odd because he would do the same with her brothers too. But, the jitters happened with Nidhi when he started showing his private organs on a sly when nobody else was around. Nidhi developed nausea and was frequently vomiting for the surprise of her parents. These episodes of perversion and all continued unabated for a long long time until Nidhi turned 16 years and joined college. That is when she revealed all the incidents that happened with her to her mother who was shocked and moved to tears. She was engulfed with guilt and remorse for not having understood her daughter's plight. The bed wetting, the bouts of nausea and vomitting, OCD habits and routines, crying and sobbing with even a slight change in somebody's behaviour or speech and so on. By that time her uncle was married and so he moved to another house a little away from Nidhi's house but not very far away. He behaved as if everything was fine and normal. Nidhi's father was not aware about his antecedents and was fine with him visiting their home along with his wife. For Nidhi and her mother it was a terrible time which they managed with great difficulty specially Nidhi needles to say.        

  The man in question in order to cover up his acts started to spread lies about Nidhi's character among his other relatives back in their home town. He even did the same with common acquaintances lest his character would never be exposed. Nidhi never understood the typical behaviour that these acquaintances exhibited towards her. This further made her feel bitter and guilty about her own self. With a lot of self driven concern and knowledge acquired due to reading books and subjects related to such issues she was able to. become normal to some extent. Even after marriage it took her a very long time to get comfortable with her spouse credit the bitterness she had in her mind, heart and soul against men in general. As she confessed everything to her spouse who was very loving and caring she was able to overcome the nightmarish experiences she had and got back to normal. She prays to the almighty and the world that no other Nidhi should face such tortured turmoils in life and wishes to help anyone facing such situations within her limits.