Horror Homes
Everyone… every living being feels safe at home with parents or siblings around them. But some homes are a horror to some beings especially women, girls and children just because of hardened bone between the legs of another being (I don’t want to call them, ‘men’). They won’t or can’t see the relation mom, sister or daughter, just a woman, to say bluntly a sex doll, to achieve their desire, the horrible desire. That makes the women life horrible even at home. Lot of hands that wait at the workplace, schools, during transport to grope. They just try to escape every day all those horny hands to reach home to feel safe. But some homes hands are making their life horrible and sleepless nights leading to depression.
A sister sleeping in shorts and a t-shirt and a creepy brother enters her room in the morning to wake her up he gropes her thighs and ask her to wake up. But a woman is ready born with an instinct knowledge about what kind of a hand is touched her. So she knows that’s a creepy hand from a creepy brother. She feels horror at home and doesn’t understand how to share that with parents, friends or other siblings. Every time she tucks in bed, she feels those creepy eyes looking at her and hands touching her. With that thought, she can’t sleep and becomes insecure and loses confidence in being safe at any place. Everything leading to depression and suicidal thoughts.
A girl wrote “ I woke up one night and noticed my legs propped up; a dim light from the kitchen area faced through my legs, the bottom of my innerwear held aside by my brother’s finger while he gaped and I froze. Shock and shame mixed with fear paralysed me and I pretended to move around and turn to the left and curl up so that he would move away.
The next evening, I burst out crying to my mother about what had happened. She couldn’t bring herself to believe it and suggested that I might have been dreaming. She said she would do something about it, but to this day, I don’t know what it was, because he continued. He continued many nights, while I made a note of it, amongst many other experiences, in a diary which I’ve kept to this day.”
These are just two examples and there are a lot of such incidents that are still behind the scarred hearts and smile. Lockdown due to a virus led to a lot of such incidents. If the home also abuses the girl then where she can be safe. Being at the workplace or hostel is better than being at home with such creepy hands.
If a mother can’t trust the horrors faced by her daughter in that house, who is going to understand what she’s going through? India is a great country where a woman is worshipped but it is also a place where the woman is thrashed for sexual desire, dowry. A born girl child also faces the same horrors before she feels she is a she. She is harassed by a stranger on her way to achieving the dreams but she’s also facing them before she gets the idea of taking a step into the outside world. A lot of families thinks about pride and hide the problem behind the curtain. No pride is important than the women’s life or well-being.
Everybody loves to talk a lot of trash and gossip but when it comes to that matters, everybody around tries to shut the problem labelling taboo. Everything related to woman in India is labelled as “TABOO”, even her mental state. Listen to the female being around you and don’t shut them up. Try to understand her. She just need a hand that says “I‘m here, I’m listening, I understood and I’ll take action and it won’t repeat”.
Not just sexual harassment kills her but her mental instability of not knowing whom to reach out for. Mental health is more important than physical health. Mental health is different from madness or lunacy. So don’t let go of the hand trying to reach you while some stranger or known hand is harassing/abusing her.
Woman are not for granted. They do have a lot of dreams to achieve. They aren’t asking you to help them or support them. Just give them their own space. Don’t ask for favours or commitments for the job you’re supposed to do, if they are eligible. Treat them as humans, period. Make her believe at least she is safe and have peace at home.
“అమ్మ స్త్రీ ఆలి స్త్రీ అమ్మలుగన్న అమ్మ స్త్రీ
ఆదిశక్తి అపార అవతరం స్త్రీ
అగ్గీపుల్లలొ కవిత్వం ఉందన్న శ్రీ శ్రీ!
ఆ మాత్రం విలువలేనిద స్త్రీ?”
