Known demons...

I was quite young, probably not even in my teens, when a girl whom I knew quite well, told me that she was molested on a regular basis by someone whom we both knew quite well. As someone who was not familiar with the workings of the leeches and snakes of this society, I had absolutely no idea what to do with the information I had just received. All I could do, was to console her with a fairly stupid story that I had read in my comics earlier, to make her laugh - if only a little bit.

Year later, when I garnered enough courage to tell my mother about it, the issue was no longer relevant since the girl in question was no where in the vicinity of that known demon. But, my mom was shocked enough to know that someone whom we knew was capable of such an act. Even more, she was surprised that I didn't tell her earlier about it. Because, in a society that keeps telling the offended part of it to shut up and not talk to protect their "virtue", I grew up in a household which taught me that any problems faced by me as a girl - the usual groping, eve teasing and what not; that any normal, garden variety Indian girl undergoes - I am to fight back with all my might, shout out to get as much help as I can, come back and tell them and they will for sure kill the offender for me. Well, not literally kill...

Had I told her earlier, may be something could have been done. Some justice and empathy would have prevailed...I don't know! Now, it is too late for such things. All the people involved in this incident have moved on, including me. I have learned to live with myself for that mistake.

But, when I think back to it, the sheer lack of knowledge I had over that subject shocks me. Child molestation is certainly not new to us. We have seen, heard and known instances of it in our life. But, how many of us really know about it? How many of us know that it is not just little girls but also little boys who get molested? When a child is old enough to be left in someone else' care, they should be taught about good touch and bad touch. Yes, we see movies on them, share links on them, do we actually prepare ourselves to have a heart to heart talk on it to our babies?

What about the perpetrators: are we matured enough, bold enough - to question, to single out, to put the offender away; so that the person can never, ever cause such pain to another child? We, as a society, are extremely soft beings. We let go of things, we forgive and forget easily. More so in these cases because the perpetrator is usually someone known quite well to us. We worry about their family too. We worry about the implications. No, it is not a bad thing to do, just that sometimes, it is not enough to ensure that such a crime (and it IS a crime) does not happen again. But we should not forget that such pedophiles become bolder with such forgiveness. Someone, somewhere will suffer more, just because we decided not to do the right thing now.

This reminds me...

I still remember the day crystal clear - my dad, who usually drops me to school, was late for work that day, and told the cab driver who had come to pick him up to drop me off at school first and then come to take him. My mom was apprehensive about sending her teenage daughter (I think I was 13 or 14 at that time) all alone with a know-him-only-for-a-few-days cab driver (the cab service was a pretty familiar one, though). She told me semi-seriously, "If at all he tries to misbehave with you; give one punch straight on his nose, kick him in the groin and scream to raise hell." No, the driver was a decent man: he talked to me about my grades and left me at school wishing me luck for my upcoming exams. I narrated this incident because, it is such a normal thing to occur to any kid. And it can that easily be misused by someone who is not quite the decent human being that driver was.