Squaring Up To The #MeToo Monster

I don’t say it as a put-down Kangana. I don’t even mean it as a sweeping statement making light of what you may have felt at that point. I say it with compassion. I say it so as to, virtually, put my shoulder next to yours in support and put my arm around. I convey a sense of sisterhood for all the women who have faced similar incidents. And they have been all – big or small, fat or thin, black or white, Indian or Icelandic, Hindu, Christian or Muslim.

The female of the species will forever be grateful to Tarana Burke for coining the phrase in 2006 and making the society woke about the pervasiveness of sexual abuse and assault. And then a big, big thank you is deserved by Alyssa Milano who resurrected it on Twitter in 2017 and made it contemporary and relevant.

#MeToo has helped millions of women, worldwide; to ferret out repressed scars and emotions, hang them out in the open in brave acceptance and move ahead to reclaim life and peace of mind. The other thing #MeToo has significantly done is to help remove the misplaced guilt from the door of the perpetrated and put it firmly on the step of the perpetrator. That should have always been the case. That is how a sane, normal, wise society would behave. But we as humans, with all our complexities, insecurities and depravities, have never created a normal society; instead putting in all efforts to make it as dystopian as we can.

My first brush with #MeToo was pretty early in the day. I was all of four I think. Dad was posted at Clement Town in Dehradun and we were housed in those old-world charm Barrack bungalows with massive servant quarters in the back. One afternoon, post siesta, I found my way into the staff quarters during playtime and saw the batman playing with himself. I had no idea that it was called masturbating, but I remember that it felt so wrong. He continued with his act even in my presence and at some point, quickly enough, I ran out. I don’t think the batman had tried to touch me but I felt repulsed nonetheless. The other incident I categorically remember was during a summer holiday in Chandigarh. In a replay of Monsoon Wedding, my maternal uncle took me out to Sector 17 for a chaat treat. I must have been in my pre-teens or early teens. In the auto rickshaw, the devilish man began, what I call, the “kissing game.”

Before I could catch on, he had repeated the act again. I remember noticing the auto driver looking at us in his rear view. I also remember feeling dirty and telling the Uncle, “No, Mamaji, I don’t want to play.”

I think I was terribly scared about sharing the sick episode with Maa. It was, after all, her younger brother. When he invited me out the second time, I died a hundred deaths inside. I wanted to open out to Maa but did not have the guts to. Why was I saying no to the loving Uncle, she would ask? Would she believe me? Would she doubt her own brother? Would the blame be put on me instead? Nursing these thoughts in my little mind, I went along the second time, all the while with my heart pounding crazily. Yes, it happened all over again. I wanted the evening to end fast, but luck was on the devil’s side. We returned to the relative’s house and I cried uncontrollably. Amidst unstoppable sobbing, this time I told Maa. She heard me out and believed me. She must have spoken to the evil man because after that point he didn’t lure me out. Even when he visited us at our farmhouse in Doon, a distance was dutifully maintained.

I think it was after this scarring incident, that one day Maa sat me down and told me how I should not let uncles hug me or get too close to me or make me sit on their laps. I was quite confused and irritatingly quizzical with my whys. Why Maa, what’s wrong with a hug? Why can’t I sit on the lap Maa, he is a nice uncle? And so on, I chirped. But Maa patiently imparted her ‘good touch, bad touch’ lesson that she repeated several times.

With a weak moon sign, I was quite prone to colds, cough, and fever, growing up in the cooler climes of Dehradun. We had a regular physician we visited for all ailments. He was the Resident Medical Officer of the Cantonment Hospital. We had lost Dad by now, and it was just Maa and me trying to get our lives back together. Therefore, we found comfort in the familiar; in the people, we knew.

Each time I would be under the weather, Maa would either take me or ask me to cycle to the Cantonment Hospital to see Dr. Vyas. He would be perfectly fine when Maa was around. It was the times I would go to see him alone when his way of seeing me would change. He would ask me to lie on the inspection table and first feel my chest with the stethoscope. All normal you would say. Then he would feel me up under my shirt with his bare hands. Just for a few extended minutes, before I would begin to squirm. It went on like this for three or four times before I realized that it was not the right way of medical inspection. Though I felt something amiss from the first time, it took me a few more times of ordeal to know for sure. He was a doctor and was meant to give us a thorough check-up. He was from the noblest profession in the world, Dammit. Further, he wouldn’t misbehave with a very young girl whose family he knew so well.

You couldn’t be more wrong. That has never stopped predators from preying upon.

We continued consulting Dr. Vyas but I never went to see him alone. In fact, by the time I was in the first year of college, he treated me successfully for a very serious ailment. The treatment involved putting medicated bandages on the upper part of my body. While I agonized over it; I needn’t have worried. He made house visits. And he was the perfect gentleman. I was a grown-up girl now, and I feel he did not want to be caught and outed. I think Dr. Vyas was more of a pedophile. With grown women, he knew that his reputation would be at stake and it was a position of esteem he had in the Cantonment. One time I met him at the Grocer’s and I remember crushing his foot deliberately while he thought it to be an accident.