Hope in Today’s Times
While the city succumbed to the quiet of the night, Hope ran to save herself from the dead silence. She limped heavily, unable to properly lift herself amidst tattered clothes and prickling bruises that ached with every movement. Twelve hours ago she had chosen the striped grey pants and navy blue jacket for the special announcement of her promotion at the office. Now, the same clothes were barely able to cover her the way they were meant to. She frantically moved towards the ray of light blurred by her swollen blue eyes. Upon reaching, she fell face down on the road right in front of a snoring watchman. He woke up, startled by the loud thud, and saw Hope’s unconscious and bruised body. The watchman hesitantly looked around, hoping to find someone else to take his place, but a stray dog sleeping on the pavement was the only living soul to be seen. Struggling to come up with a solution, he decided to leave but only after making an anonymous call to the police about the unknown girl lying in front of him.
Hope lay there feeling numb with pain and wondering if death usually came the way it was coming to her right now. A flashback of the day cropped up on her mind and she couldn’t help but wonder if this signalled the last moments of her life. Today was supposed to be a good day. My boss said I deserved this recognition. My parents said it too and much more. Everyone thought the world of me. Will they think the same if they saw me now? The men who followed me from the petrol pump made up their own version of what I deserve. They thought my pants deserved to be shredded and the sleeve of my coat deserved to be shoved in my mouth. They thought I deserved the attention from them that I was seeking. My parked car at the petrol pump was an invitation to rip me apart. I hope mom doesn’t get angry because I stayed out a little too late at work. Or papa, because I didn’t call him while leaving from work. What if my boss takes away that promotion that I just earned? She panicked in her head while her body started paralyzing from the injuries. She lay there for the longest time, her mind rambling on and on to distract her from what had really happened to her. Hope was raped and beaten. The police showed up only two hours later.
Three days later, Hope woke up to find herself in a blurry white room that reeked of disinfectant. The doctors had heavily sedated her and jabbed her hands with several needles. She could feel the sharp sting of bruises on the body and a shooting pain in the insides. While she was still managing to soak in her surroundings, she saw the familiar faces of her parents rushing towards her. Behind them, she saw two nurses stopping a commotion of people with cameras and mics from entering the room. Unable to speak, Hope looked at her parents with teary eyes and they reciprocated by stroking her hand. She wanted to tell them how much in pain she was and how relieved she felt to finally see them. Her father first spoke, “Beta, yeh kya hogaya tere saath? What has happened to you? I am very sorry I couldn’t be there to protect you. You…you didn’t deserve this.” He choked upon completing his sentence and burst into tears along with his wife. Hope’s brain once again triggered memories of the horrendous night, and the physical pain succumbed to the unbearable waves of shame hitting her one after the other. She slowly shrugged her hand away from her parents. Her mother said, “We know what you’re going through and we will make it right for you. The FIR has finally been lodged today, the police were hesitant but we convinced them you were coming back from work and nowhere else. We believe in our daughter.” Hope started wondering, I know they are only concerned and worried but why do I feel even more uneasy listening to them? Are they ashamed of what happened? Is it my fault? Eventually, the heavy painkillers took over Hope and she drifted into a deep sleep feeling a heavy load on her chest.
“Hope. Hope. Hope.” She half-opened her eyes to see three men in uniform hovering around her bed beside her parents. The pain had subsided and the doctor had reluctantly agreed for Hope to be interrogated by the policemen. Hope curled up, scared by the unfamiliar presence in the room. Her mother assured her, “This is part of the procedure. These men are here for your own good, beta. They will solve all our problems.” Hope feebly tried to utter, “I.. I don’t feel safe,” but the voice barely escaped her mouth. She tried to speak again but the uniformed men waited with a blank expression for her to talk. Then, one of them impatiently asked her, “Kitne baje office se nikli thi? What time did you leave from work on that night?” Hope muttered, “Ten in the night.. I don’t feel too comfortable talking yet, please.” Her father calmly said, “Hope, this is important. Please focus on the issue. There is no time to waste.” The men profusely made notes while hastily asking her a series of detailed questions from the horrendous night. With every answer Hope became even more anxious as the men ignored her fearful pleas to postpone the interrogation. Her parents too acted unconcerned. At last, she jerked herself from the bed and sat straight up to reiterate at the top of her voice about how she felt. No one in the room paid attention to her paranoia. The men continued their questions while Hope’s mother rushed to get some cut fruit, now that her daughter could sit and eat.
Hope felt like she was lost in a vacuum. As much as she tried to make everyone understand, no one seemed to be bothered by her trepidation. It is quite the tragedy how day in and day out the society witnesses the horrors of abuse on the news, across their neighbourhood, within families and close circles. One would anticipate with hope that such exposure sensitises and increases the ability of the society to collectively empathise with the victim. However, the dark reality is that more often than not, the discussions on abuse are merely limited to dinner table conversations. Is the gravity of trauma associated with abuse incomprehensible unless and until one experiences it? Hope had given everything she had in her to communicate her fears but the invisible wall between her and everyone else only kept raising higher and higher with time. This huge divide gave birth to endless chaos in the society where every person except Hope believed they had the perfect solution to easing her pain in life.
Each passing day became even more excruciatingly painful for Hope. She was forced to speak to a hundred seemingly important people and repeat the chronology of the horrific night again and again. All of them chorused the same idea, “We will bring you justice. You are the daughter of our society.” On a Wednesday, she found herself at the round-table of ‘Sach ki Awaz’ (Voice of Truth) channel, where local politicians, a news anchor, and women’s crusaders debated how to catch the criminals. One angry politician screamed, “Apni sanskriti ko bachana hoga fir hi humari betiya bachengi. We must save our traditions in order to save our daughters.” To this, the women’s rights activist retorted, “Excuse me? We know our culture. You do your job and hang those animals to save our daughter.” Hope sunk in her seat hiding her face despite the black dupatta that attempted to save her honour from being revealed on national television. On a Friday, she could hear her parents surrounded by neighbours in the park right outside her home sloganeering “Aurat ke dushmano ko zinda kyun rakha hai? Why are the enemies of women still alive?” Another day, the local MLA sympathized with Hope and advised, “Women should not step out alone, especially late at night.” At the same time, the news anchor from ‘Sach ki Awaz’ described Hope’s clothes from the night as a relevant detail to their audience. Even when the criminals were finally caught by the police, the news survey of the same channel advocated for the residents’ desire of an encounter of the rapists by the police instead of a never-ending trial. At no point did anyone bother asking Hope what they could do to make her feel better, not even her parents. No one noticed how Hope could no longer meet new people without curling up against the wall. She could not sleep alone in the dark. She refused to step out of the house. The weight of opinions, stories, and narratives suffocated Hope until one day she truly lost her ability to speak. No one noticed that too. Everyone was too caught up in saving Hope and giving her the justice that they thought she deserved.
As days passed, Hope stopped believing she would ever feel safe in a society that did not take a second to understand its victims. They were all trying to be saviours and yet none of them would be able to save the next woman who would be abused as soon as she stepped out of the house. Surprisingly, once the deed would be done, they would continue saving the victim. In the quiet of her room, she wondered how many more victims would have to be created before someone would think of ways to make women feel safer in their public life? Day in and day out, the residents came up with a new plan to destroy the rapists and the news channels danced to the shifting stance.
The madness continued all over the town as Hope sat in the secluded corner of her bed praying for all of it to end. All I wanted was to feel safe in my room, on the street, at work, while travelling, while meeting people, while talking. Was it too much to ask? What good would it do to me even if they killed the men they think did this to me? Would this also ensure that no one else will ever do it again? I can still feel the eyes of the policemen, the journalists, and the next door uncle crawling across my entire body. The doctor did not spare the judgment while checking for injuries. Nor did the pitiful looks of my family. Will I ever be accepted as the Hope who existed before that night? Hope could not bear any more of this mayhem. Next day, early morning, her mother walked into the room only to find her daughter peacefully lying in bed with her eyes wide open and her body dead cold. On realizing what had happened, her knees shook and she stumbled to the ground. Her husband came behind calling for her and saw her clutching the bed while staring at Hope’s face. Like his wife, his body froze as shock took over him. A while later, the police entered the house and neighbours started pouring in. The room was filled with unknown faces standing all around the bed. There was a dead silence for the longest time until hushed voices took over the room. Amongst the conundrum, one could faintly hear someone whisper, “look what she did to herself, those animals must be hanged for her sake.”
About the author: Shreyashi is a lawyer having an active interest in building the discourse of feminism and defeating patriarchy. With a knack for reading non-fiction, she has surprisingly ventured into writing through fictional narratives on life, politics, and gender.
About the story: The story revolves around the painful experience of a young woman, Hope and the trauma that is aggravated by the society’s response to it. Chaos ensues when different members of the society demand their own version of justice, accelerated by the shifting stance of the media. Amidst the pandemonium, no one bothers to consider Hope’s feelings and desires to overcome the tragedy faced by her. The story hopes to put its readers in a moment of reflection about how we, collectively as a society often pass uninformed judgments overloaded with passion and fervour. While doing this we tend to miss out on the larger scheme of problem solving as a society, often at grave expenses.
