Unheard

Travelling through that dust in the air, in midst of dirt, sand, puke and blood, a horde of memories floated through the air. I had no choice but to inhale those stabs of death, heavy as the air was with stale violence.

 One gulp and the chapters I had read in another’s life began to threaten the threshold of my own.

 The second gulp brought with it, the heightened realization of the pain Seema was suffering through; a shiver travelled down my spine.

 The third brought that inevitable wave of fear, not for Seema this time, but for my own self.

 This was no warning, but a sort of a lesson taken out on her by those whose covers I had stripped down to reveal them as the villains in front of everyone.

 

Six years ago…

 

Our interactive classes in college demanded telling stories as a part of our assessment. There was this girl, Jaani in my class. She used to tell brilliant stories; morally engaging, thought provoking… we all praised her imagination.

Eventually, we suspected that writhing beneath those thick veils of presentations was a soul, crying out desperately for some quiver of hope in the dark. Only later did we realize; that those stories of ‘xyz’ or ‘abc’ were in fact, anecdotes from her own life; her own miserable life.

It was a typical case of domestic violence, something I was very well aware of and something which I knew to be very common; but witnessing that as a breathing entity beside us every day, somehow hit us all. After the first signs of facts dawned on us, few of us got together and finally decided to confront Jaani and satiate our suspicions. We took the utmost care in framing our question so as not to hurt her; but alas! So touched she was by the mere fact that we had bothered to read between the lines of her story, that she broke down. The howling relapsed into uncontrollable fits of gasps and panting. Finally, when the shaking subsided, she begged us not to tell anyone. First, we tried to make her understand… but then:

“Please please… don’t."

“Listen Jaani, something needs to be done about this...”

She cut me short, “No please… I beg you. No. I’ll be ruined. You don’t understand.”

For a moment there I wanted to ask the heavens to bless me with a bigger brain for the one which I had then was not in the least able to understand that at all. How much more could she be ruined when her body was already covered in blood scars from the one who was in the first place responsible for the blood flowing through her body? How much more did she had to lose when her own father beat her mother, her sister and her day and night, drunk or sober?

“Listen, Jaani. You need to tell this to someone. This can’t keep going on. You, as a person, have a responsibility for your mother, for your sister. Stand up to him.”

“You don’t understand… he’s my father.”

 “What use is a father if he only beats you? That’s no father. Giving birth doesn’t sum up the role of a father. Yes, he has given you life, but that doesn’t give him the right to control it; or take it away. That right is only and only yours.”

 I knew these words would be lost on her. I was right.

 “I know… but just promise me you won’t tell anyone.”

 “I…”

 “Promise me. It’s not easy…”

I looked at her a moment, into the water clouding her eyes…she was afraid of a worse fate. And that fear was enough to keep her bearing all the beatings her father lashed out at her. She had lost long back, or perhaps had never known living in freedom; that life was not merely to survive but being human gave us that privilege to stand above other animals in having a dignity in living... It’s our right. She had never known this…she was too wrapped up in the customs of our society; shaped up by the brain-washings of a culture that had now been twisted to defend the guilty. Our culture and society teach us to respect our elders, and take our father as the head of the family but it fails to tell us to 0not keep mum in dire submission to their atrocities. But who was to tell Jaani that?

“He will leave us; I can still be alright, but what about my mother? Who will feed my sister? My mother won’t be able to support us. Promise me, you won’t tell anyone or it’ll ruin her.”

I just nodded my head just to stop her from convulsing uncontrollably.

Our society still tends to form a prejudice about women who leave their husbands or who have been left by the husband, no matter what the circumstances are. I felt both shocked and helpless at the same time. I wanted to do something but I had promised.

 …

 

It’s been six years since that incident. It was the first spark that made me follow what I currently do now. I am a passionate enthusiast in the field of woman empowerment. As a co-founder and the present director of ‘Janani’, I have devoted my life to these countless unnamed women, the life bearers of our world; who have forgotten their voice. I try my best to revive that lost voice…

Seema had come to my hut, a short walk from hers. She was bleeding in the right eye; one of the new recruits of my team brought her medication and made her sit on the charpai (cot).  The recruit handed her a glass of water. She drank it through suppressed sobs. But before she was able to finish the glass, she vomited all of its contents out on the charpai where she sat.

It was not difficult to guess what must have transpired behind the closed doors of Seema’s small house between her and her husband. Our organization was camping in the village, working on a case that had come to our attention. The day before, by on our persuasion, Seema had volunteered to stand witness for us, in proving the village’s local politician guilty of having murdered his own daughter. He was an unelected small time politician but he had powerful resources. So now, her husband, a henchman of the culprit’s had shown her, her place; beaten her brutally, raped her and threatened her to keep her mouth shut at the trials if she cared for her life. When finally, her husband succumbed to alcohol-induced slumber, she crept away and followed the tiny ray of hope leading up to our hut.

It was the dead of the night. My recruit went out of our hut, to the hut where few other members of our organization were staying, just to inform them of the developments.

After she left there was utmost silence, only the constant ebb of Seema’s silent tears resonated in the shadows thrown by our bodies on the mud-plastered walls.

As I stretched out my hand to pat on Seema’s back, I heard a knock on the door.

I went and peered through the slit in the wood; it was Rajat, another one of my assistants. He was staying in the adjacent hut. The switching on of lights in our hut all of a sudden must have worried him. I opened the door, and he stepped inside, looking around the hut questioningly.

“It’s alright. It’s Seema. Her husband tried forcing her into not going to the court tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry, didi (elder sister), I will come tomorrow no matter what,” came a weak but determined voice out of the fragile woman sitting shaking on the cot.

 It’s extraordinary how courage can be found in the most unlikely of places, from the most unassuming of hushed people.

I turned towards her and patted on her shoulder. “Thank you, Seema. You don’t know how much this means to me.”

“I want to help; I know they killed her for running away with the shop boy. She was a good girl. She didn’t deserve to die.”

“You are doing good. And don’t worry. You’ll be safe here.”  This was one of the times when I felt thankful that we brought along some boys with us; things could get rough in such neighbourhoods. And to be honest, seeing Rajat standing in the room, gave me a sense of security, biased though it may sound.

“I wanted to talk to you about something,” said Rajat.

“Ya sure,” he drew me to a corner and dropped his voice to a whisper so that Seema couldn’t hear.

“I think it wouldn’t be wise to go to the court after all this.”

I stared at him for a moment, “What are you saying?”

“Listen, all I am saying is.. this is getting too dangerous. It would be better if we just drop this one.”

“And let things be as they are? Give up the cause we are fighting for? If you are scared you can leave, but don’t even dare to ask me to give up what I have devoted my life to.”

“Don’t make this harder.”

“I don’t understand. What’s gotten into you all of a sudden? Just relax alright and…”

“Listen. I hate to do this but one way or the other I am not going to allow you to go to court tomorrow.”

 I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “ALLOW  me? You listen to me Rajat, I am going to be present at that court tomorrow as the chief witness along with Seema and have those bastards sentenced to their deserving deaths and nothing you say or do is going to change my mind. You better get that through your head, alright.”

I turned around in anger and made my way to the cot where Seema was sitting with her back towards me. I strode over to her and placed my hand on her shoulder. She turned around to face me and uttered a loud shriek; something hit me hard on the back of my head. I wheeled around, with dazed eyes, my head throbbing with pain. Holding a laathi (stick) poised precariously over his head was Rajat. My eyes looked at him with all the confusion that could be crammed into my face. For a moment, the underlying uncertainty skimmed the surface of his face, and then the next second wiped away the hesitation and down came the stick, aiming right for my face. I lunged to the right on instinct, stumbling over the cot and landed on my knees. I was shocked, surprised and unable to understand what the hell was going on. But this wasn’t the time for comprehending as Rajat was raising the stick again. Seema sat as much shocked, probably more, gaping wide mouthed at Rajat. I shouted at him, “What the hell are you doing?”

His only answer was bringing down the stick with full force on me. I ducked under the cot but it caught me in my sides this time and I bowled over in pain. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You left me with no choice.”

“What?” I asked even though the answer registered on my brain. I just hoped the answer would be different.

“You can’t appear in court tomorrow.”

“Hah. I don’t believe this. After all, those politicians did find the weakling in my organization.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Geeta, sacrificing yourself for people you don’t know, doesn’t pay so well.”

“So you sold yourself to those scums, you bastard.”

“Call it whatever you may. The point is, the money they offered me to stop you from giving one appearance in court was more than my whole year’s salary put together. And I have a family to feed.”

 “So just to make your ass comfortable, you put this girl’s life in danger?”

 “Oh! Grow up Geeta. You don’t even know this girl. She is used to being beaten, and no matter what you do, the girl you both are supposed to be ‘witnessing’ for, is dead. You can’t bring her back to life.

“Come on. Don’t make it harder. Just agree with me, and no one needs to be harmed.”

“You disgust me.”

“I am asking you for the last time; don’t be hard on yourself. Even you know you can’t bring back a dead girl to life. Why make Seema’s life hell too by making her go against these people? Don’t...”

BANG.

A loud thud shook the walls of the hut…“My life is already hell.” Seema was seething; her chest heaving with stifled rage as she stared down at the unconscious body of Rajat lying amongst chunks of broken pottery and vomit at her feet. A narrow stream of blood trickled from under his head. Clutched in each of her hand was a piece of the earthen water pot she had brought down on Rajat’s head. I heard running footsteps and soon the other five members of my organization were standing inside the tiny hut having run into the hut on hearing the thud; questions bursting at the edges of their mouths. But the dead silence was contagious. The shock was starkly etched on all their faces; five pairs of eyes swinging from Seema to Rajat’s body on the floor demanding an explanation. At the moment I was as inept at giving an explanation as them. Seema collapsed onto the cot, bursting out into fresh tears.

So here I stood breathing in the stale violence; gulping the air inside a dingy little room, somewhere deep in one of the many rural hearts of India. 

 “Help Rajat,” was all I could manage. Two of the boys ran towards him, picking up his body and carrying him over to the adjacent hut. There would be time to explain the situation to them later. Our huts were in the secluded corner of the village and no one else had heard the commotion going on in the middle of the night. One of the girls rushed to her own hut, to get medical aid. I walked over to Seema, as the others still tried to process what had just happened.

I went and gave a bit more water to Seema, this time to wash her face. When she was done I wiped it for her with the edge of my dupatta. “Help me cleanup,” I called out to the others. One of the members busied herself in cleaning the room and ridding it of the reminders of the vomit while the other rushed to his hut to get clean towels.

Jaani’s face from six years ago, crying in the girls’ toilet, begging us to stay mute about her misery, flashed through my mind.

I put an arm around Seema and patted her on the back. Her crying became more pronounced but more relaxed too. I remembered Jaani again. Six years ago, after my talks with her; I had broken a promise. The result was that today Seema was perfectly living, and living free. Her mother was divorced now, her father sent to jail, and her younger sister had just passed twelfth with first division. As Jaani had said, it had not been easy, but I had broken my promise; I had told it…luckily to the right authority... and three lives were saved. I remember the glow on Jaani’s face when we met a year ago in her office. That glow made all the hardships worthwhile. And so I continue to reach out to the unheard Jaanis and the Seemas of this country, even if it is draining me inside out. There’s still a long way to go; I know. Sometimes it poses even a direct threat to my life, but I am determined to do it no matter what; because the lives that are improved even in the slightest by me and my team’s efforts are all that I need; it’s the greatest reward… their smiles.

Rajat would be fine. Still, he would not be able to make it to the court tomorrow; but that didn’t bother me because I would. I would make that appearance in court tomorrow with Seema and bring justice to the dead girl. I’ll have to be more cautious. It won’t be easy but then again… when has it ever been?

It was almost daybreak now. I put my arm around Seema and whispered through her subsiding sobs, “Have faith. Everything will be all right.”