Trishanku

by Akshita Gandhi

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Trishanku- a person who belongs nowhere; Is that how she felt each time she faced the aftermath of the horrendous act? When each time a friend laughed about it, saying it wasn't rape if the man was your husband. Did she feel like she needed to escape, escape, not from that surrounding, but this world, which failed to recognise her pain? “Maybe he was too drunk to hear me, when I told him to stop. Maybe I didn’t say it loudly enough. Maybe I didn’t say it enough times." Did the rays of sunshine peeping through the curtains still make her smile? Did the water wash away all the pain when she stepped in the shower? And did her eyes still shine, each time she smiled? Tell me, tell me because I want to know. How did she hand the tiffin the next day, to the same man whose hands had coaxed her body, to give him his pleasure despite her refusal and when he stepped out did she feel any relief or was her body a prison now too?  Did her belief in God and all worldly things end right there or did the tears falling silently, start asking the questions which refused to spill out each morning she did the puja.  Did she ever speak up or did she just die inside silently, because I still want the answers to the questions which this society refuses to acknowledge. - I once read somewhere, "No future triumph or metamorphosis can justify the pitiful blighting of a human being against her will."

Today I can strongly say, consent could never become invalid in the world where validation is ingrained in the minds of all those existing.