It’s been more than a six months I
have written anything. But this was not really which I ever thought of penning
down. All I can say:
“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder 'why, why, why?'
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”
Few months back I started reading
some psychological books, two important learning or earnings:
a) If we go back in history,
we will find Men psychology
revolves around his biggest fear i.e. Death. Even if we go back in one of
the early works of the literature, Epic of Gilgamesh, an
epic poem from Mesopotamia, is amongst the earliest surviving works of
literature. Here we find the protagonist, Gilgamesh and his fear of
death , whether through his allying with Enkidu, a primitive man created by God's to fight with Gilgamesh
or while searching for immortality after Enkidu death and interactions
with Utnapishtim .
b) If we go back in history, we will
find Women psychology revolves
around the attempt to regain their status as full-fledged human beings, to be
accepted as the natural equals of men, and no longer to be used as a repository
for the projected evil that males thus disown. Reason for this was: Women are to
blame for all trouble in the world.
Even if we go back to Bible:
When God confronted Adam in the Garden of Eden, HE thundered the accusation "Have you eaten of the
tree, of which I commanded you not to eat?” And Adam, trembling and ashamed in his
nakedness, copped out "The
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, She gave me the fruit of the tree, and I
ate."
And in the Epic of Gilgamesh,
when mighty Gilgamesh selected a beautiful prostitute to bring Enkidu from his
hole, it brought the myth of feminine evil: The female is the "dangerous sex" whose task it is to stir man's lust,
but who in so doing betrays them and robs them of their powers.
An old Hebrew tradition holds
that the first creation including a female called Lillith. She was the very
first defender of the cause of women's liberation. When Adam told Lillith that
she was to obey his wishes, she replied "We are equal; we are made of the
same earth ". So saying she flew up into the air and transformed her into
a demon that ate children. Even that early, women who not subjugated themselves
to the will of men were seen as Witches.
Now here is a view of modern world:
Gayatri Loko was born in a very poor
family of Monpa tribe, residing in the Sela range of West Kameng in Arunachal
Pradesh. Traditionally, the Monpa tribe was a Buddhist tribe which had its
roots in Tibet .Real problem started when in 1914 , British government ,ruling
India, had a treaty with Tibetan Government for McMohan Line, which was never
accepted by the Chinese government after independence and resulted in 1962 war
between the two countries. The war has resulted in the termination
of trade with Tibet.
Gayatri's grandparents had a strong
hold in the carpet making business but sudden termination of trade
with Tibet, had brought them in the lower strata of the society. Her
family had lost all their land and even their only ancestral house, in repaying
the loan they had lend and they worked as daily wagers in other's fields. There
was only one school in their region and Gayatri father had put her in the
school. She was good in studies, might the conditions of the family and the
sacrifices of her parents had become inspiration for her. She always used to
stand first in her class and also after her school time, she used to help her
family in fields. She had a keen interest in learning their traditional art but
she couldn't find anyone in the village practicing that. Gayatri had grown up
in age as well in wisdom.
With the growing conflicts between
India, China and Tibet, the Kameng region became the epicenter of the
contentions. Whole area was boiling with Military tensions, long term curfews
and insurgency of Chinese troops. Gayatri's father decided to send her to
Itanagar to her aunt to continue her studies. She was not happy with that
decision of her father but she knew it was for her good. She moved to Itanagar
and joined a school. After school, she often used to help her aunt in
house-hold work. Every year in her summer vacation she used to go to her
village and spent time with her family. After completing her education in
school, she joined Rajiv Gandhi University, the only university in Arunachala
Pradesh. Once she completed her graduation, she moved to Hyderabad for higher
studies. She joined a reputed institute for pursuing her higher studies in
Social Studies. As some-one said "The
greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest
challenge is being happy with what you find." She was among the few people who had
accomplished the second challenge successfully. Her room-mate Preeti, from
delhi, was also a highbrow but witty one. Preeti knew that Gayatri was very
hard-working so every day morning she used to wake up early and used to switch
off Gayatri's alarm. She used to do all kind of tricks against Gayatri.
Gayatri's school-mate at Itanagar
and her best friend Geeta's brother was in Hyderabad. He used to work at a
salad bar near Gayatri's college. She used to meet him nearly every weekend.
One day, while talking with him she told him about the tricks of Preeti. Sanjay
tried to diffuse the situation with some humor, he said:
“Gantabyer dike jao, sathik
path bechhe nao, sab kichu pichone fele, jara saamne tader chaariye jao…..
taholei tumi ekjon bhalo rickshaw-wala
hote parbe!!!”
(Move towards your destination,
choose the correct path, leave everything behind, overtake those in front of
you….. then you can become a good rickshaw-puller….)
He told Gayatri to bring her books
in his shop and study there in a corner if she wanted. Initially, she used to
come not often but then it became her daily routine to come to his salad bar
and sit in a corner with her books. Sometimes Sanjay used to make salad or
sandwich for her as she knew her financial conditions. With weeks and then
months passed-by, she became very close to Sanjay. One of the reason for that
him being a very good listener and as someone said "If we can tell our
story to someone who listens, really listens, we find it easier to deal with
our circumstances."
Often children understand better
than we do. I once heard a delightful story about a little boy who was late
getting home one day. When his mother asked why he was late, he
explained that he had stopped to help a friend whose bicycle had broken down.
“But you don’t know how to fix a bicycle,” his mother said.
“No,” the little boy said, “But
I stopped to be with him while he cried.”
Sanjay also had a soft corner for
her. But he had one bad habit. He was some kind of drug addict, every day he
used to take spasmo proxyvon (SP) tablets
or nitrosun-10 (N-10) tablets. Shamefully, these tablets are easily available
in at drug store in our country (if you pay 3 times more than its price, most
of the chemists are ready to give it without prescription).
Sanjay kept this as a secret from
her. And since she never found anything suspicious in his behavior, so no
guessed. One day police raided few chemists in their surroundings, hence for
next few days, Sajay found it difficult to get his hands on his addictions.
With each days moving, he started behaving frantically. And one day when she
came to salad bar, she found Sajnay not at work. She checked with the owner and
he was also clueless. Blackened in her thoughts, she decided to reach at
his place. She reached at Sanjay's place and knocked his door reluctantly.
Sanjay's room-mate opened the door, whom she had met in salad bar many
time. He told her that sanjay was not well. She thought as
a courtesy to ask for his wellness. Unaware of Sanjay's addiction and
dirty mind of his room-mate she entered into the house. As soon as she went in
Sanjay's room, his room-mate called his two more friends and closed the Door
and the windows. They baited Sanjay for providing him adequate supply of the
drugs and anxiety-driven Sanjay
couldn't really make out what was happening there. His friend’s gang-raped
Gayatri .Once they are done, they waited for the night. In the night, they
took unconscious Gayatri to Manjira River and pushed her in the
waters.
Fortunate or
unfortunate Gayatri was seen by some passer-by. Soon her room-mate was called
and a message was sent to her family. When her father reached hospital and saw
her daughter in such a condition, he was completely broken down. After hearing
her story, he went to police station but police refused to take the complaint
saying that it was consensual and she was involved with Sanjay & his friend
and it was a suicide case. Her father tried hard but police didn't do anything.
Knowing about all
this, Gayatri started developing paranoid feelings; spend her days sitting in a corner of
the room. Currently Gayatri is a mere subject patient in National
Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences for Post-Rape trauma syndrome students.
I met her two
months back when a friend of mine, doing his masters in Psychiatry from
that institute, told me about her. Looking at Gayatri, more or less dead,
it reminded me of the following lines:
khanjar se haathon pe lakeerin koyi bhala kya likh paya
humne magar ek pagalpan mein khud ko
chuna hai seene mein
I spent some time reading on Post
rape Trauma:
Rape: It's the ultimate breach
of boundary between the self and the outside world.
When soldiers want to terrorize a population, they rape. The rape lets others
know “who's the boss “.
And when the raped victims have children, the children carry the seed of the
rapists. So no one forgets who's the boss.
Rape is not just unwanted sex, it is
a highly traumatic experience and like other serious traumas, it has negative
effects on those who survive it. Rape is usually experienced as life
threatening and as an extreme violation of a person. It is not surprising then,
that many rape survivors suffer from a particular kind of Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder, known as Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS).
RTS has not only stress disorders on
the victim but also on the victim’s family and friends. Remembering an old
hindi movie “Ankush”, which had this prayer “Itni
Shakti humme dena data , maan ka vishwas kamzoor ho naa “ In this movie, the rape of
Anita (Around which whole plot of the movie revolves) at the hands
of her employers , ignited a fire of vengeance in her four friends (roles
played by Nana Patekar ,Rabia Amin ,Raja Bundela and Arjun Chakraborty) .
Gayatri’s case was not like the one
depicted in the movie. For some people life just seems like chapters of
sufferings. Her father after admitting her in NIMHAS, left for Kameng but never
reached home. She joined as a patient two years back and now is a subject for
Master’s students.
Today the whole country has started
celebrating Durga-puja. Durga Puja festival marks the victory of Goddess Durga
over the evil buffalo demon Mahishasura. Thus, Durga Puja festival epitomizes
the victory of Good over Evil. And now the whole country is filled with
many Mahishasuras and we are just chanting Maa Durga’s stotram
अयि शतखण्ड विखण्डित रुण्ड वितुण्डित शुण्ड गजाधिपते
रिपु गज गण्ड विदारण चण्ड पराक्रम शुण्ड मृगाधिपते ।
निज भुज दण्ड निपातित खण्ड विपातित मुण्ड भटाधिपते
जय जय हे महिषासुरमर्दिनि रम्यकपर्दिनि शैलसुते ॥४॥ **
Remember we did the same when Mahmud
of Ghazni raided Somnath temple seventeen times and people of Indian
subcontinent kept praying for God to come & help, rather than standing
against him.
Regards,
Aditya deadpan
** It means Victory and victory to
you, Oh darling daughter of the mountain, Oh Goddess who breaks the heads of
ogres, In to hundreds of pieces, Who cuts the trunks of elephants in battle,
Who rides on the valorous lion, Which tears the heads of elephants to pieces,
Who severs the heads of the generals of the enemy, With her own arms, Who has
captivating braided hair, Who is the daughter of a mountain. And who is the
slayer of Mahishasura
References:
a) Recovering From Rape by Linda E. Ledray
[ ISBN-10: 0805029281]
b) After
Silence: Rape & My Journey Back by Nancy Venable Raine
[ISBN-10: 0609804197]
"Silence has the rusty taste of shame. The
words shut up are the most terrible words I know. . . . The
man who raped me spat these words out over and over during the hours of my
attack--when I screamed, when I tried to talk him out of what he was doing,
when I protested. It seemed to me that for seven years--until at last I
spoke--these words had sunk into my soul and become prophecy. And it seems to
me now that these words, the brutish message of tyrants, preserve the darkness
that still covers this pervasive crime. The real shame, as I have learned, is
to consent to them."
c) The Truth
About Rape by Teresa M Lauer MALMHC [ ISBN-10: 0966207815]
