Reminisces about the day I was molested

I thought I was over it. I always think I am. But with every new incident I realise that it is so much a part of me, that try as I might, I cannot separate it from who I am. It has defined me, shaped me, given me a maturity too great for my years. It taught me cruelty, but also trust amdist it. It taught me to keep buried within me a part that is so much me, and yet, not me at all. It taught me that it isn't my fault, that I need not take blame for something that someone else has done. That I can get through it, no matter what. And it will make me a stronger, wiser person.

I am reading the book "My Story" by Kamala Das (late). A story told simply and truthfully, like facts laid down before a court, no fanfare, no self pity. The story of those thousands of women whose bodies are brutalised and spirits crushed, who are allowed to live only for their husband's pleasure. The book has depressed me and I cannot read anymore, not unless I agree to let go of my sanity at the end of it. It is as if with every word I read, all the cruelty of the world is laid before me, and everything beautiful robbed of it's beauty, and only the sould crushing truth remains.

"Every middle class bed is a cross on which the woman is crucified. Men fall in lust, not love. Women crash in real self-destroying love" - Kamala Das.

Being a girl is harder than I thought. It isn't just the comments and cat calls and whistles I have to put up with. Those are bad enough. But every time that my competence is questioned because I'm a female, I'm reminded all over again of how unfair the world is to women. To tell you the truth, I hardly have to bear any discrimination at all, and it is still so bad. What about all those thousands, no millions of women who are beaten up by their husbands, thrown out of their houses, raped, murdered, brutalised by this society of ours? All this only because of their gender. And to think we worry about communalism!!!!

Boyfriends can be a really irritating lot as I just realised. Talk about love being blind!! It changes people to extents hereby unknown. Take my friend for instance. Thought I knew her and all that, and then suddenly one day..Boom!! And she's got a boyfriend. Not that I minded then. None of my business who she goes and falls in love with. But then she doesn't seem to be interested in anyone else anymore.

I really don't understand why friends always think of their boyfriends more than their friends. After all, at the end of the day, when they have a fight with the boyfriend, it's we who sit and console her. We're the ones who help her move on once she's broken up. And yet, when he is around, we are like wild flowers in the undergrowth for all she cares. Bloody damn unfair if you ask me!!!