Violence

The word violence never had any special meaning. Not for her. She always took it to be something that was part of her life, like transport or rent or even the random guy who tried to touch her bossom every time she took a bus or traveled in a train. Violence was synonymous with everything she had been through in her life. It was trivial. It was petty. 

She had seen it in her eyes of her father, when he had repeatedly struck the wall with his fist, when her mother had come home one day, eyes smeared with shame and her kameej half torn. Some hooligans had molested her. She did not get a chance to get a good look at them.  Her father had refused to lodge a complaint against the faceless, nameless culprits. He had just asked his wife to freshen up and not to tell the neighbours. She was nine, and had seen the violence in his eyes. She had also seen it slowly wash away with the drops of blood on the wall and the tear stains on her mother’s face. She thought that’s how it is supposed to be.

She was fifteen, when her best friend had come to school with a blackened eye. Her refusal to say anything about it was annoying. They were best friends. There wasn’t supposed to be any secrets. She later found out that her friend had been sexually abused by her uncle. When she complained to her father, the black eye was a punishment for telling lies. The violence had struck her hard. She could not fathom why the wrong person was at the receiving end of it. She had seen the residual violence in her friend’s eyes when she had gone about her days getting quieter every day. 

She was in college, when she fell in love. She did not know whether it was because he was so charming, or because she was naive enough to think that good looks and better clothes was what a girl looked for in a guy. He had taught her how it felt when he ran his hands on her thighs and planted a carefully careless kiss on her forehead. He had taken her hand in the dark movie theatre and she had thought this was it. He had eased into it. He had taken her home because it was raining. His room smelled of freshly laundered clothes and old cigarette butts. The first kiss was awkward. What followed was unexpected. When stopped by her repeatedly, she was startled by the violence in his movements and the tone of his voice. She was puzzled when she was asked to get lost, and not so politely given a shove. On the way home, she shed tears for the part she did not play. She wondered if what she had done was foolish. She had stayed up all night and was still unable to figure it out. 

As she grew older, she had come to understand what violence was. For her, it was not what was apparent, but what went unsaid and unchecked. The movements, the flickers of the eyes, the midnight tears, were all part of the vicious cycle. She slowly adapted herself to the world, because the world refused to budge from its place. She learned to look around her with fear when she walked on a lonely road. She learned how to use her bag as a shield when she travelled in a bus. She now knew that men were not to be provoked, because in the end, no one will be able to save you. She was adept at putting on the veil of obscurity and walking away when the stranger licked his lips at her or commented on her ass. She was the epitome of womanliness. Or what she had learned was necessary for survival. 

Violence is trivial. It is petty. The truly condemnable is what brings about that violence. She had learned not to give it another thought.