Blank Stares: Of Rape and Rehab

“Mumma meri Kummo se baat karogi?” (Mother, will you talk to my Kummo?) asked excitedly my 2 year old daughter drowning whatever my mother was telling me on phone. I asked my mother about this ‘Kummo’ who had activated such enthusiasm in Nyasa. “Her name is Kamala and she teaches Nursery kids in the school. And when you send Nyasa to me, she becomes her governess,” told my mother. So, Kummo is the one who handles my child and I better be thankful to her. After a week when I travelled to my hometown to fetch Nyasa back, I finally met Kummo and her sister.

My mother has been running a school in what can be called one of the most backward districts in Uttar Pradesh. Whenever I get too busy in my professional ‘shenanigans,’ I send Nyasa to her grandparents where she can be taken care of in a much better manner. All the parties involved love this arrangement. Including Kummo.

When I reached my parents’ house that noon, I saw Nyasa being fed khichdi by a tall teenaged girl. She was dressed in the way almost every small-town girl does: a pair of unaltered jeans with dirty and worn out cuffs, a synthetic kurta and a shiny stole. Her hair was tied in a high pony-tail and she wore inexpensive earrings. A dusky complexioned, completely average looking girl who greeted me with a Namaste and stood aside to facilitate an emotional reunion of her ward with the mother. As I learnt later that day Kummo took care of Nyasa during the school hours when my mother was busy in her office downstairs. She bathed, clothed, fed and even tutored the two year old. Her elder sister, who also teaches in our school, paid occasional visits during the school recess but Nyasa hadn’t taken a fancy to her.

As a nitpicking mother and an ungrateful daughter I observed Kummo very closely during my stay there for one reason initially and quite another after the first day. The girl appeared a little unstable, extremely sweet at one moment and quite detached the other. She stared continuously at a spot without realizing it. She ran without really having to. I found her really irritating at times. I was waiting for my mother to come upstairs after winding up for the day. How could she trust our most precious treasure with a girl who was definitely mildly idiot if not totally a crackpot! I never realized in my sanctimonious demeanour at that moment that Nyasa was MY responsibility which I comfortably transferred to her expecting world class arrangements in a god-forsaken mofussil.

“Mom, this girl is a crackpot, her hair is dirty and she has no sense of hygiene. And she stares a lot. Find somebody else. Can she actually teach? Just because her sister was a student here doesn’t mean that you have to employ both of them.”  And so on. I had endless complaints. My mother, as usual, made an angry face which was an age-old signal to shut up. She then declared, “This girl is a rape survivor.”

“Stop being so judgmental,” she demanded. “And, haven’t you noticed how happy your daughter is in her company! Nyasa is an extremely headstrong child and hypersensitive one at that. You think it is easy to find somebody who can be so patient and genuinely caring. Why don’t you find one in Delhi?” I was ashamed of myself on many accounts. How could I be so callous that I chose to ignore her patience and loving ways with Nyasa and focussed on her messy hair! That she was a rape survivor hadn’t sunk in at that moment.

“You ask me why I have employed her, so here are the two reasons. Firstly, the sisters belong to a poor family and do not have means to support their education. Whatever I pay them here goes towards their education. I agree that they are not great teachers but at a nursery you don’t need educators. You need people who can connect with little children. They take long leaves during the exams and come back to teach once done. And with all your gender equality activism in a metro, do you realize how difficult it is for a girl who was raped and brutalized in childhood to survive in a small town like ours? She is a little unstable but at least she is putting up a fight. Isn’t it our duty to help her and the family to put the trauma behind them?”

I was suitably chastised.       

Next morning when I woke up to Kummo’s shrill voice, I was gripped by a renewed sense of guilt. Her instability was an outcome of horrible deeds of some depraved men and it was as if she was questioning our collective consciousness through her blank stares. Her ways did not change but my attitude towards them did. I learnt a new lesson in empathy. Till now rape was something distant, which happened to some unfortunate women. A woman myself, I had hitherto distanced myself from rape, it only happened to unknown people. It would never happen to me or my friends or family, I had thought. I had tackled it as clinically as possible to save myself the emotional drain. When I faced Kummo, however, all that was bound to change and it did. The reality behind her odd behaviour and the pain behind her loud laughter educated me like no literature, seminars or debates on rape would.

I still keep sending my daughter to my parents at regular intervals. In the past one year the bond between my daughter and her Kummo has strengthened. Whenever Nyasa is set to come back to me, Kamla asks about her next visit. Last birthday the sisters gave Nyasa a cute little yellow bag. I tried my best to stop them but their loving defiance was way stronger than my concern towards their economic status.

Last night Nyasa asked her father all of a sudden, “Dadda, aapko Kummo yaad hai? Aap Kummo se miloge?” (Father, do you remember Kummo? Do you want to meet her?) What a coincidence! I was outraging against the brutal gang-rape of a 23 year old medical student that is sending shock-waves across the country and has jolted even the most insensitive and apathetic of cops. While almost everyone is demanding a befitting punishment for the brutes- ranging from public stoning to bobbitization, I am more concerned about her rehabilitation if she survives. The brutalities suffered by her body will unfortunately deprive her of a normal “physical” life. The doctors have said that she might never be able to eat again. She has decided to live and has shared the sentiment with her mother through a written note.

I pray she gives no blank stares upon recovery for I now have at least a little understanding of what lies beneath them. And if there are any, they must meet cheering and empathetic faces. Rehabilitation and assimilation of rape survivors is far more important than punishing the culprits. One sneer here or one jeer there can annihilate even the bravest of us while we are picking up the pieces of our brutally shattered life.  

* The rape survivor's name has been changed to respect her privacy. 

** Image courtesy http://www.kabar24.com