Punyasloke Bose

Abstract Drama

4.4  

Punyasloke Bose

Abstract Drama

When My Daughter Became the Object of Desire

When My Daughter Became the Object of Desire

11 mins
286


I always satisfied my teenage wishes through my daughter. During my growing up years, the surroundings around me were very conservative. I could not dress up as I wished. The clothes I had to wear were a size or two bigger so that my growing up womanly contours was not noticeable. The particular hairstyle I liked had to be dumped. The way I walked and the way I talked were all tutored. I could not talk to any boy who had grown out of his childhood. So I had made a silent resolution that if I became a mother to a girl, I would change the world around us. Please pardon me for harbouring such outlandish desires. 


Fortune smiled on me and I became the mother of a beautiful girl. She had her father's aquiline features and my wheat complexion. I took a great passion for dressing her up from her toddler stage. I did various hairdo for her as I wanted to. Her father did not object to my choices with her as he was liberal. Her grandparents sometimes did point out some discrepancies here and there but didn't create any obstacle. I splurged her with expensive dresses. The dresses I wanted to wear but could not. I liked her to dress skimpily because that is how I felt like dressing but wasn't allowed to. Because I felt that's how girls look smart. And my girl really looked smart. 


She attained puberty early even a couple of years before I had attained . I admired her small but beautiful torso. I dressed her so that her womanly form was conspicuous. Because I wanted myself to be that way but wasn't allowed to. My little one became obvious of her changing form and shape and felt shy about it. That's how it's the growing up story. 

My daughter continued her growing up journey. She reached her teens and looked beautiful specially with the type of dresses I made her wear. I made her hair to grow long and at just the beginning of her teens she had almost knee length hair. She was made to have a straightened hair specially salon treated. Overall she looked a celebrity when I dressed her up and took her out with straight flowing hair, wearing skin tight dresses and high heeled shoes. 


She looked a diva when she walked the streets and the people around stared her with popped out eyes. I silently enjoyed the adulation she received. My adolescent dreams being fulfilled I felt very happy and satisfied. 

But little did I realise that I was doing an immense harm to my daughter. By satisfying my unquenched desire I was putting her to danger. Many of my lady friends often spoke about her skimpy skin tight dresses. How by dressing this way she was becoming more vulnerable. Many of the onlookers gaze was not innocent. My friends warned that by the way she was dressing and by her getup with long flowing hair at such an young age she was tempting the male population. They warned of people who could stalk her and put her in grave danger. 


My first reaction to this criticism was that the people's mindset had not changed over the years. That they were overreacting. Why others should do the moral policing over our dress sense and physical appearance. I refused to reconcile and outright rejected the advice given to me. 

Slowly, I could make out that my daughter wasn't enjoying so much attention. All the attention she got was not of a benevolent nature she realised was what I felt. But she didn't discuss all this with me. She had a very quiet nature and wasn't a gregarious and loud mouth type. 

After school she attended tuition, music and yoga classes. Then also I dressed her up very suavely and keeping her long flowing hair straight down without knotting it up in braids. I let her attend these classes to go alone so that she would develop self confidence and overall smartness. But later she was reluctant to go alone thanks to the peeping eyes of the people on the streets. Also her friends' mothers asked me to accompany her and not leave her alone considering her safety. 


Then the problems were beginning with her. She started having mood swings. Constant gazes towards her was making her irritable. Although she would not open up fully but was feeling uncomfortable wearing tight clothes. Because she was now becoming very conscious about her growing womanhood. Once she complained that people kept staring at her growing chest so to avoid this she asked me to make her wear loose dresses. My extravagance with her seeming to have adverse effect. She stopped communicating gradually. Only on very important needs when she spoke to me Then one day she held me tightly and started crying. What she explained, drove me out of my senses. She had been a victim of groping in her yoga classes. Her instructor had touched her inappropriately. He asked her to see him alone when the rest of the students had left. She didn't like it and had left the class immediately. Soon I struck her name from the yoga class and warned the teacher that he would be reported to the Police. 


After this incident, my daughter became more of a loner. Most of the time she kept to herself and kept muttering to herself inaudible stuff. I kept watching helplessly the developments. My daughter was going in to a depression. Her father generally a doting dad didn't like the change in behaviour and suggested counselling. The counselling regimen started soon but there was hardly any noticeable change. 


While still on the recovery path when another incident completely shattered her. My daughter's body was undergoing rapid change. She was fast developing into a woman only hardly fifteen. Although now she had started to dress more conservatively in salwar suits abandoning the earlier skirts and tops which exposed the breast area. She now sported a dupatta the traditional Indian way to hide her feminine form and shape. But even in the salwar suit and dupatta she looked gorgeous an epitome of true feminine beauty. She had almost grown up to my height and looked beautiful. A true Indian feminine form with the sculpted body. I was proud of her beauty and thankful to God to have blessed her with such beauty, the beauty that I had desired. She had been blessed with generous portions in and around the waist and the breast. Then did I realise that the form of Indian female beauty should be kept under the wraps of mystery and mysticism. Only the feminine form would allow her viewing to the man or men in her life and to the child she would feed when nature would fill her breasts with milk. But the world she lived, looked at her like a prey to be devoured. All due to my false ego and warped thinking. 


After her school, I had discontinued all other classes except her science and maths tuition. Because without this her basic education would remain incomplete. She now very rarely left home except for school and tuition. 

One day I was waiting for her outside her tutor's house to accompany her back home. When suddenly she ran out straight into my arms crying uncontrollably. Her hair was dishevelled and her eyes had fear writ on it. She now always tied her hair into a single braided pony tail and she had stopped sporting the open hair style. I held her at arm's length and wanted to know what had happened. Then I found the front of her kameez torn and her brassiere open. She had been molested I feared. She sobbed uncontrollably and couldn't utter a word. 


Then other students of the tuition class came out. One girl student said that their tuition sir had dragged my daughter into the bathroom and tried to do things forcibly when my daughter had a scuffle and ran out. A large crowd gathered around us. They started shouting slogans asking the teacher to surrender and own up to the crime. Other girl students and their mother's also reminisced about excesses done by their teacher towards them at different times. But they did not speak out for fear of scandal and loss of reputation. 


Then all of us marched to the Police station and filed an FIR against the teacher. The Police arrested the tutor soon and produced in the court. The next few days was harrowing for my daughter. We had to make continuous visits to the Police station to record the incident. Seeing the complaint being lodged other girl students also opened up excesses against them done in the past.

 The tutor had an excellent reputation as a teacher but his past records of sexual exploitation was unknown as no student had spoken out against him. Only after the incident with my daughter did other girls started opening up. Then we came to know of what a serial offender he was. His arrest would immensely harm the student community. But I couldn't compromise with the suffering meted out to my daughter. My only concern then was the welfare of my daughter. 


The next few months were very harrowing for us. My daughter was studying in class nine and it seemed that she would have to drop a year because she stopped stepping out of the house. She had to depose endless times in front of the law enforcers to help them build a charge sheet against the tutor. 

All these incidents had a very telling effect on my Girl's mind. We were forced to let her discontinue her going to school. In fact she rarely stepped out of the house. I was feeling guilty. Was it not for satiating my endless ambition had led to this sad state for my daughter. The next six months was a nightmare for our family. We engaged countless counselling sessions for my daughter but all to no avail. 


Then after endless days it seemed that fortune was smiling on us once again . I got a call from my brother who was in the navy and was posted at a small port in the south at a great distance from us. He had recently married and his young wife was getting bored for having no company. He suggested us to visit them and stay with them in their government provided quarters. The port city they were staying was quiet and peaceful and he suggested that the calm environs would soothe the frayed nerves of his niece. 

We had lot of discussions at home. My husband also suggested that we change location for the benefit of his daughter although he couldn't accompany us because of his work and his parents. Further my daughter would miss her dad, her favourite but for the better good the tough decision needed to be taken. 

So finally we landed at my brother's place. My husband reached us there and after staying for few days made a tearful departure from his beloved daughter promising to be back soon. 


By the grace of God the small sea side town had a real balm like effect on my daughter's mind. Within a few weeks she overcame her trauma and almost totally forgot whatever bad had happened to her. The people of this little town was not overtly conscious of her presence and my daughter could easily mingle in the melee. Slowly she became oblivious of herself as a part of the townspeople and gradually became a part of it. She started her schooling in the Naval school of the town and made good number of friends both girls and boys and overcame her awkwardness in their company. 

Another milestone change in her mental set up was a lucky set up of facilities available there. A naval officer's wife was an accomplished danseuse and a classical vocal exponent. She was eager to teach students in the arts she had mastered. My daughter's mental well being improved further through this music and dance. Music has always been and will be used as a therapeutic treatment for distressed souls. 


Another great positive in her life was the training she received in the form of martial arts. This bolstered her confidence in facing life head long. Through this training she got rid of the extra flab accumulated in and around her breasts and hips and developed a more toned body. 

It was now almost five years we are in this seaside naval out post. My daughter has now graduated and has become a confident woman. A lucky opening got her an entry into the navy, an area where very few women tread. She was to become one of the first woman pilots in the navy. 

Now I can thank myself. In the end I could see my beloved daughter where I wanted to see her. Confident and ebullient, ready to take on any challenges of life which a man can face. This is what I had wanted for myself but unable to achieve myself had dreamt it for my daughter. But the remedy or the course I had taken for her was probably skewed and faulty. My road map for my daughter had almost jeopardised her life for good. 


Then did I realise that the type of environment we get can make or break a Girl's Life. We just cannot play with the collective emotions of society. Some societies are more patriarchal than we would like it to be and in these societies trying to experiment may lead to disaster. The seaside town was more egalitarian in its thought towards the women and let them exist and grow harmoniously than the town from where my husband belonged. This town needed much more time to let women have their own space until then they would harbour the thought of every woman being an object of desire. How I had almost made my daughter an object of male desire. 


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