My Civil War | The Untold Story

       In light of the whole Bengaluru Mass Molestation being discussed and shared throughout social media a lot of thoughts surfaced in me. Today even 10-year Olds have a Facebook account and are very much informed than any average 40-year old. Not sure if that is a good thing. I so wish I was that informed a few years back.

        You see, I am a Rape victim. The sad part is, it took me two years to reconcile and understand that what had happened to me was rape. Before we get into details, shall we just use another term for rape? That word makes me cringe a bit even though I will be using it a lot here. How does WAR sound? So here on after I will be using the term "WAR" instead of "RAPE".

         Now going back to my earlier statement. I did not understand that what happened to me was war, for about two years. Because it was done by my boyfriend at that time. I thought war happened between people who did not know each other. Or people who basically did not like each other. At that point of time I thought this fellow liked me. So when he forced me inspite of me crying "NO" I thought this is how it will be. I was stupid. Stupid in way that I trusted a guy who basically forced me into a relationship by threatening me. I trusted him enough to go over to his place alone when he told me that he wanted to introduce his friends to me. 

          After watching most of those dumb Tamil movies I still thought it would be the bad guy who would ambush me. Never did the thought cross my mind that this fellow could harm me. Even when he forced my first ever kiss that I was uncomfortable and cried myself to sleep that night. When he started removing my dress and I tried to stop him, he simply tied my hands. What can a girl weighing 45 kg do against a guy who was still high from the drinks he had earlier that morning?  I don’t know what hurt me more. The way he was trying to enter me when I was not ready or the way he kept spewing out demeaning comments like “You are not even bleeding. You are such a slut huh.” “Your pussy stinks. Don’t you wash your genitals ever?” “Stop resisting whore”.

         Oh yeah! Probably a whore would've resisted, I thought. And at that point I did not even understand what I was doing to resist. I was lying there helpless with my hands tied, tears streaming down my cheeks. I remember not being able to sit without wincing for the next few days. I remember getting my period a day later and I couldn’t even get out of bed for a week. I remember sitting on the terrace and crying and asking for forgiveness from my grandpa. I had betrayed my dreams of losing virginity to my husband. That was my problem at that time. Not once did it cross me that the incident was not how one should have lost their virginity ideally (married or not) I did not know what happened. And I did not go to anyone for help. I did not even know that I needed help. 

           Fast forward two years and I was reading an online story where a war victim justified her side of the story. That is when I realized that I too am a war victim. Like the girl in that story. If you have ever been awoken by pouring a bucket of ice cold water, well this felt 1000 times worse than that for me. Now I knew I needed help. But how was I ever supposed to make someone understand that I did not even know what happened to me until now? 

         The interesting part was that, I was 17 when it happened. Legally speaking that guy should be behind bars now. Lets not go there for now. But what did I do? After I understood that I have been victimized?  Well I did not know what to do. Frankly it is not something I could be open about to anyone. Knowing that everyone just keeps judging everyone for no reason. I pretty much kept to myself though. Obviously, I blamed myself. Tried to find a psychologist. Found one on the internet. Went to him. He basically started preaching spirituality to me. Left it at that and went about my life. Buried myself in the world of books and art. Any hobby was interesting for me. My secret was very safe with me. And I was the only one who knew about it. I tried to talk about it to a guy who seemed all understanding. Then I realized he wanted sympathy sex with me. I was not going to go on that road man! Nope!  So I stopped trying to reach out to anyone. 

          Fast forward two more years. I was happily working, I have a boyfriend, a few good friends. One fine night when one of those friends got piss drunk and was whining about his life I couldn’t take it and blurted out “I am a war victim. Do you see me getting drunk and destroying my life? Do you see me complaining and whining?” That sort of shut him up for a good minute. The other friends in the conference call were shocked to say anything. And that is pretty much how I opened up to my friends. Until then I did not have the courage to even accept it. Much less say it out loud. They convinced me to tell my boyfriend. He was on a vacation that time. I still took the chance and told him. It took him a week to process the information and come back with a response. I don’t blame him. He still accepted me. He said he didn’t care about my past. But that one week was agonizing for me. Wondering what people think and wondering if they will just accept me… That was a very bad phase! I would rather not go down that road again. 

            I hope whoever is reading this can understand that Sex Education is not just information about how intercourse happens in a biological way. It is also about understanding what is acceptable and what is not. A no is a NO. No man or woman deserves to be touched against their wish. I am not saying one shouldn't have a partner or fool around. If your girlfriend says that she is not ready, let her be. Trust me! It will be much better when she is ready. Even if it was a friend or your own husband who violated you, it is war. If you think you initiated the make out session, you have the right to stop when you feel uncomfortable. 

             Any action that makes you feel violated/uncomfortable/used is war. Report it. Talk about it to your closest friend. If you think your parents will understand, tell them. Express your feelings. Get help. Do not keep it within yourself. You do not deserve it. This is your body. You make the rules. You decide who gets to touch it. It is your wish and only your wish. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. They do not have any rights. 

             And Dear Men, please do not think that this is a privilege that only Women have. This is a fundamental right that everyone (supposedly) has. I can only talk from an woman's perspective. But please understand that I would hold your hand if you need the strength. I get it. I wished someone had told me all this. I still wish to punish the guy who did it to me. Making me scared to trust anyone in my life again. More than the physical after effects, it is the mental trauma that still haunts me. I wish I had the strength to talk about it. Until recently I did not have the courage to even come out and say that I am a war victim. I wished I had help. And this is me trying to help people who have been war victims. This is me reaching out. This is me saying "You decide what you want and what you don't want." 

Anything more to PR beyond talking?

                  Three things that are most commonly associated with Public Relations are phone, e-mails and newspapers. Most people either don't understand what PR is all about (and that constitutes 90% of the professionals who need it to support and grow their respective companies). The other 5% (include family/ friends and people you randomly meet) who no matter how much you try to explain derive this conclusion that it is one cool job where all you need to do is talk on the phone! and remaining 5% who understand the know-how of PR are rare finds, alas!

           So the following is to clarify that those working in a BPO or a call centre are paid for talking on the phone. While in this profession it is just one of the tools to communicate with clients/media/internally just like in any other business.

            PR is one service that no professional company can ignore and why should it be limited to businesses. Personal PR is given as much importance now days. A statistic say, in a month a PR company gets at least 3-4 requests from individuals who want to take on this service to boost their image. Basically everyone from a company like TATA to a Pizza Corner or an NGO, from Bill Gates to a Kathak dancer need PR for brand building and to talk to the world.

          I know, doing PR for Bill Gates probably sounds like a cake walk and a wow project to work on. Almost everyone may say yes. Though it is comparatively easy but to walk on the cake you need to bake it and for baking that perfect cake you need to get ingredients in the right proportion.

         PR is a profession for thinkers! It needs people who can think, analyze, conceptualize, identify the respective target audience develop strategies; make a POA to achieve the set targets. and mind you no two clients even if they belong to the same industry will have the same strategy. It requires patience in abundance and most importantly it is a 24X7 profession, especially if you work with a hospital client. If the hospital gets an accident victim or a VIP patient one needs to be on site even at 5 am to execute the crisis management process.

       A PR desk gets about 15 newspapers every day and about 20 magazines a month. For a PR professional reading them all (if time permits, else there are dedicated people to do this part of the job alone) is step one. It helps to identify how to place the clients, which story can be plugged where so on and so forth. Oh yes, most of the stories you read in the paper are thanks to people like us!

         Clients think PR is like magic which will boost up their sales or enhance image in a day and that is a constant fight factor for us! Because PR is a sustained effort that supports the advertising and marketing efforts of a company. Ironically this is one of the most under-mined/rated services but highly valued and required at the same time. Costs are negligible in comparison to the huge advertisement budgets and involve much more hard work. For an advt. there is a fixed cost for which you buy space in a newspaper or on a channel.While we put out the same message without paying a penny to anyone and the art is in packaging it perfectly!

          Though unfortunately there are no set standards in the industry to measure the worth of PR but it is said that a story via PR carries 5 times more value than an advertisement. The credibility attached to it is higher as it is a third person endorsing your message.

        Some feel PR has a high glam quotient attached to it. Yes, there are these stuff like, to dine at fancy restaurants and stay at 5-star hotels but then there are no free lunches :). The 'G' factor is hardly an attraction.What keeps us going is to see our stories reaching out to the masses, just like hitting the bull's eye!

        All of this is just the tip the iceberg of what a PR profession is all about. Just because what one notices most is that the PR people talk it doesn't really mean that's all they can do...!


PS: This is a guest post and the views expressed are solely from the mouth of it's author