2- Abused & Blackmailed

I was sleeping in one of the rooms of what I thought of as heaven-my maternal grandparents’ home. I always craved to go there and each visit to Haldwani felt nothing short of a trip to New York to me. That day, while I was sleeping, I heard a knock at the main door. As I was just waking up from my nap, I went outside to see who it was. When I saw my father standing there close to the door, ringing the bell, I went inside again to hide. He then took me out for a day with him, while I was still sleepy. 

I remember that once during our long stay at Nana-Nani’s house after we fled from our own home, Ma was reading a letter softly but aloud which was sent by father, which had lines which go like “jis maa ka doodh peeya hai”, referring to me if I presume correctly. I don’t know if it was “peeya hai” or “nahi peeya hai”  because I later learned that as an infant, I didn’t drink from my mother’s breasts ever. 

Meanwhile, Nana-Nani and ma admitted me to a local school and I enjoyed being there away from him. It lasted two months and then I do not know for what reason she again went back to him, taking me along. Ma was always scared of the idea of divorce, scared of what people will say, and as she was never a working woman this concern must have been there as to how she’ll sustain her life without him in it. 

At around this time a teenage boy named Narayan arrived, who had come to us as a house helper at a meager salary of I think five hundred or one thousand rupees. His family was very poor and he was a native of Uttrakhand just like us, and a boy of upper caste, which suited the family well. Unfortunately, his’ and my Isthdev’s name is the same because if I ever find him, I would beat him to plump, because, sometime after his arrival, when I was just around five years old, studying in upper kindergarten, he started telling me objectionable descriptions of copulation between a man and a woman. Soon, he started sexually abusing me out of curiosity and I was naive to let him do that. 

It all kept happening for around two years even after we had shifted to Haridwar, and unknown to me ma was pregnant at that time. Out of fear, he started physically abusing me as well. He used to cover my mouth and nose with his palms and did not let me breathe until I was breathless and begging him to stop. This was not once, it was a usual affair while both my parents were out. I was terrified of him. This was his way of blackmailing me to not tell anything to anyone. I remember, once while I was alone with him in the house, I accidentally dropped off my plate of watermelon. It was the summer season and he out of anger, grabbed my head, pushed my face onto the floor, and asked me to eat the wasted watermelon pieces. I was terrified of his gaze, his angry face, his hate for me.

My father once said I should take care of my gifted toys and know that he would not buy me any, so I took care of them. But I don’t know what problem this Narayan had that he was unhappy to see me happily playing with my favorite toys. One day, while I was away at school, he deliberately broke my favorite toy and pretended that he doesn’t know anything. I was shocked when I came home from school. The toy was my favorite cartoon character Tyson’s bit beast- Dragoon’s Beyblade( from the cartoon anime Beyblade), and it was precious to me.

It was the time when every boy used to discuss and play with Beyblades. We used to do Bey battles, where our Beyblades (spinning tops) clashed with each other and the one which stopped spinning first was considered defeated. My very powerful Beyblade, my favorite toy out of the very few I had(all gifted by some relative) could defeat every other Beyblade in a battle. I was really very very upset with it broken and I never got another like that although I wanted it. I would still want to have a Dragoon but now they’re not available in the market.

One day I gathered all my courage, and secretly wrote down a complaint of him in big Hindi letters of how he beat me and made me breathless, and showed it to my mother. She laughed it off thinking I was being naughty. I admit that what he did to me sexually back then felt pleasurable to me and I did not tell about it to anyone. It was later that I realized what had happened to me. It was not something I had chosen myself. I was manipulated into it by a clever teenage boy who had no control over his hormones.

My father wanted to take me by his side, ma wanted me by her side, and for many years I was in the middle of a tug-of-war between them that who shall possess me. It was very toxic and my father used to get very angry when I took ma’s side or protect her from getting beaten. Once he tried to interrogate me that whether she had or not gone to the shop to telephone her parents and whether I talked to them or not. Ma had told me to not tell him, but he easily found out my lies and kicked me in the back for lying to him.

My parents were blind to the fact that I was being abused. Father was unapproachable in all senses and Ma was too naive to identify what was happening to me in our own home. Ma was helpless and we were busy bearing the cruelty of my father. I was a very sensitive kid, who would be teary-eyed to see someone suffering, whose hands would feel weak when hearing about a disease, and for me, it was all too much to bear. All this while Narayan was very obedient to my father because he was scared of him, like everybody else lest he beat him too, which sometimes he did. And, once when my father ordered him one evening to take out all my clothes and make me stand naked in the harsh winter weather in the backyard as a punishment, he was liking it. He kept smiling, while I kept crying. I was in class second.

Around this time, my father found himself in a trap that would take away his peace of mind for many years to come. He was falsely accused in a corruption case and one day he came home drunk, called my mother to the car, and drove away at full speed while Narayan and I looked helplessly. I remember one day he again got home drunk or maybe it was the same day when he was drunk like a devil and went to the room where my infant sister was peacefully sleeping. He then pulled over the quilt onto her head and face due to which she was not able to breathe properly. 

After being in our home for a few years, Narayan left us. This was around six months after my sister was born. I still think he realized that if he would be with us any longer, his dirty secrets would come out through me. 

Soon after he left, I did what I believe to be the first mistake of my life.

TO BE CONTINUED…