Sound Quest

Omigod, that was absolutely an amazing read. the way you were able to capture the nonchalance, yet not so nonchalant attitude of the young woman and the realness of such a situation had chills running down my back. i am still trying to shake the feeling and its awful to know that i will be able to shake it off in a little while, yet this feeling still haunts the character of your story and countless others like her. what was especially wonderful about your writing was the way the parents responded to her retreat from the world. it was seen as something good girls do. also the way you matched up the sound of flesh slapping against flesh and the cutting of the chicken from the bone...very chilling and just gorgeously written. thank you.

rizvi

Jawahara - this was disturbing, squirming, amazing. It takes a lot of courage to write about something which we are programmed to hide under our guilt and shame. And sexual abuse of children is something we never talk about - of course it doesn`t happen in acchay khandan. I`ve known someone who, while not necessarily abused, was certainly physically harassed by older cousins in much the same way you were. It`s a constant source of shame for her - she feels guilty for something that she was not responsible for.

Like someone pointed out in a previous post for the female drug addict article, sexual abuse of children is complicated because, after all, what if the child enjoys it? You certainly did not. But for my friend, the harassment raised very conflicting emotions within her - on one hand, she wasn`t entirely sure why her body was different and therefore desirable, and she was flattered by the interest shown in it. At the same time, she hated the violations made on it, the sense of her body not being her own but an object to be pinched, laughed at, stroked. It meant trying to avoid the harassers while pretending that nothing untoward had happened - before, during, and after.

I`ve sent your article to my friend and i hope that your courage in being able to write about this will help her know she was not alone. Thank you.