…Somebody cries in the middle of the night,
The neighbors hear but they turn out the lights;
A fragile soul caught in the hands of fate,
When morning comes it will be too late.

Through the wind and the rain,
She stands hard as a stone in a world that she can’t rise above;
But her dreams give her wings and she flies to a place where she’s loved …
—Martina McBride

Abuse is of those oft used words that I have heard but never seen in my own life. The amount of news and laws that I see in the US about it makes me wonder if I am living in an alternate universe. It almost looks as if the US is in some sort of sadistic self-decadent spiral, while India is unblemished by such effeteness.

Then you scratch the surface and it all comes tumbling down out of the closet. I have got to hear about these stories of sexual and physical abuse after all these years of believing that such do not exist in the India society. How wrong was I!!!

As with most things Indian, all such depravity have been swept under the carpet, under the guise of familial or personal honour. The sheer number of incidents that I hear about now, makes me wonder whether the protected childhood that I was so proud off has given me a skewed idea of the ways of the world.

The reasons for such abuses being swept under the carpet make me want to wring somebody’s neck. Some of them have included “Oh he is my brother”, “He is family”, “You must have done something inappropriate” and the flat out “You are lying”. This posture of people most close to the victims makes it a double burden to carry. The emotional scares are never really healed and nobody seems to take any notice of it.

India does not have a comprehensive child abuse laws. Only now is some effort being put into it, but the effectiveness of it is still suspect. Especially with the family trying to more often then not support the offender, it makes it almost impossible to deal with it.

The first time my nephew learned at school that he could dial 911 if he was spanked at home, scared the heck out of cousin. Now that I am seeing the world in a different light it all fits in somehow. I always imagined it was a western issue and that the eastern societal culture had no such problems. The new stories were all eye openers.

The fact of the matter is that most of the perpetuators are known and close to the victims which makes it all the more hard for the victim. Do you try to get somebody close to you arrested or would anybody believe you at all? The actions of the parents are all the more baffling in such situations. These are people who will give their lives for their kids but refuse to accept that their kid has been a victim of abuse. The worst is when the parent is him/herself the abuser, there really is no where for the kid to turn to in India currently

Don’t get me wrong I am all for a pat on the butt once in a while… I have got quite a few stories to tell about that :). But when I was reprimanded at home I knew it was with love, I knew that I was still loved, only my action was not. But I guess there are enough numbskulls out there with a distorted view of appropriate punishments.

I might have made sweeping generalisations in the above paragraphs but somebody has to do it and who better to do it than me!

“Child abuse casts a shadow the length of a lifetime.”

Checkout some new pics at my diary
A good source for child abuse in India
P.S: Martina McBride is a country music singer and concrete angel is her hit single about child abuse. You need to check out the video for it … really poignant.