The Woman

She was sitting at her desk, browsing the recent posts on her homepage for Facebook. She saw a post summarizing a story of a woman who had been sexually harassed by her father for 12 years, then how she withstood the world living in fear, experiencing more traumatizing events in her life, even though it had a trigger warning, she read it.

Even  the world did not consider her a sexual harassment victim, she knew she had been harassed indirectly by the one she had loved. Maybe, that's why she read it, to know how a woman deals with all this, how a woman feels after it happens, how betrayed one feels, how afraid. It was so deep, it rocked her to her very core, she could relate to her fear. How she wasn't safe, maybe the world is like that, savage, but maybe it  is more for women, maybe not, but this was not something which could be solved by the provision reserved seats in trains, or education or anywhere else, maybe justice can be served after things conspire, but that justice cannot change what has happened.

What is the need for justice to be served? isn't prevention better than cure? Or is vengeance a bigger or more important trait than peace?

Well, maybe, peace is war.

Her train of thoughts led her to the event, which transpired which had made her a victim.

In her school days, Rashmi was an in intelligent student, full of life, with good friends, she was a class topper. She was beautiful, humorous and enjoyed life by the day, she did not care about the future, as she lived in the present.

She had a boyfriend, Chirag. They had been going out for a long time and were happy together, at least, she thought they were. One day they went out for a date in Chirag's car, things transpired and they began to make love in the car.

Unfortunately, for them, a policemen had his eye on them, the girl was thrown in jail whereas, the boy, was not. The girl wasn't a minor apparently and the boy was.

Rashmi was released a day later, alone. Her mother didn't trust her. She went to school, some of her friends had started calling her a callgirl. She was not given pocket money anymore, her best friend didn't lend her money, told her to get out of his face and not call him back again, he cut the call calling her a 'whore'. Chirag had started ignoring her in school and stopped picking her calls. Some boys in school began teasing her daily, oogling at her and shouting obscenities at her.

She had to leave school eventually. But life had been tough for her from then, they left the neighbourhood where they lived, she was on  house arrest for many years after that day, apart from school where her mother dropped her and picked her up from.

She could never forget that incident, how she was treated in jail, that was the worst. Tears were rolling down her cheeks.

As she finished reading the post, she decided that she would help the girl out in any way possible.

Rashmi called up the girl, fought her case and a few months later, her father was jailed. Justice had been served. But was it really necessary?