Sunita was the only child. She lost her mom when she was just 5. Since then her life had been a living hell. Her father, construction worker by profession, married again. Sunita’s step mom not only beat her every morning, she made her do all the house chores, till she was dog tired. Sunita would lie on her straw mat in the kitchen sobbing and begging her mom to take her to wherever she was. She would clutch her mom’s picture and bury it in her chest and wait for the inevitable.

She would lay there shivering, praying that it to not happen tonight. But then it did, every night. Her heart stopped when she heard her father’s voice at the door. Her step mom would always open the door and go to sleep just as quickly. Her father, inebriated and hungry, hungry for flesh, would barge into the kitchen and violate Sunita despite her protests. For the past few weeks Sunita had stopped protesting. It only prolonged the torture. She would let her father do whatever he wanted to and stay awake the entire night in the same position, as if she wanted her mom to see what was being done to her. She had stopped talking to god, as she thought he only listened to rich people.

She only spoke to her mom. She would keep staring at her mom’s picture even as the image would get blurred in a second. It would clear when tears would overflow, but then her eyes would fill up again. The pain was only hers. She didn’t go to school, she didn’t have any friends, she wasn’t allowed to go out of the home and wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone. Once her step-mom caught her talking to Shamlal, the ragpicker’s boy living next door. That day, her step-mom dragged Sunita by her hair into the kitchen and forced her hands into a vessel full of boiling water. Then she burned her body with cigarette butts. When Sunita begged for forgiveness, she tied her to one of the bamboo poles inside her home, which supported the roof, and went out of the home. Sunita lay there writhing in pain till her father came home, only to untie her and then abuse her yet again. Her meal included two night-old Indian breads and water.

She was only 15, and it felt to her as if her life was over. She had nothing to look forward to. Even Tomy, the stray dog in her village had a better life. At least people were nice to him. She cried at her sheer helplessness and cursed her mom for leaving her with such monsters. And then she cried for cursing her mom, as she was only one she had.   

Then one day her life changed. She met Ramu, a young man who had come to the village on some work. She had seen him before, but there was nothing she could have done. It was a Tuesday. Her father had gone of to work and her step-mom was really ill. Her step-mom wanted to get some medicines for fever from the local doctor, but since she couldn’t even get up, she wanted Sunita to get it for her. Sunita was ecstatic. This was the first time in years that she would be stepping out.

Her eyes didn’t know where to look when she stepped out. She excitedly looked at the flocks of sheep running around in a haphazard manner. She giggled when she saw the village boys playing marbles. The dry, algae ridden well walls never looked more beautiful. The noisy birds up on the banyan tree never sounded more musical. She hopped her way to the doctor. While she was returning, Ramu blocked her way and asked if he could talk to her. Sunita shyly said yes. Sunita’s step-mom’s illness went from bad to worse and it worked out in favor of Sunita. She would meet Ramu every other day on the pretext of getting medicines. She didn’t realize that her friendship had grown to love, so much so that she was willing to do anything for him. Hence when Ramu suggested that they should go to the city and find a job and a better life, she said a yes, even though she was dead scared.

She chose the day when her father was out on a night shift. She left the home telling her step-mom that she was going to the doctor. She packed all her belongings and took some money from her step-mom’s savings that was hidden in the sugar jar in the kitchen. She kept her mom’s picture in her bundle too. She looked at the house one last time before moving closer to having a new life with the love of her life.

Their life together was picture perfect. Ramu looked after Sunita really well. He bought her new clothes; they would watch movies every week and visit new tourist places every day. Sunita, who was even scared of people coming near her, had a tough time initially in letting Ramu get intimate with her. He understood the trauma she had gone through, so he was patient with her. Sunita’s health improved and with that her emotional scars healed as well. Sunita was finally happy.

Ramu started encouraging her to become more social and as a starting point, would invite his guy friends over for dinner. Sunita loved cooking for his friends, as they seemed nice and pleasant people. Then one day, while all the others were seated in the hall, one of Ramu’s friends called Dinesh, offered to assist Sunita in her cooking. She considered the gesture really sweet and thought she could use some help. But the ‘offer’ seemed to be just a pretext to get a little too close. Dinesh would purposely stand right behind Sunita and would on the pretext of picking a vegetable or spice would brush against her breasts. She found the behavior shocking, but kept quite the first couple of times when it happened. Then she noticed him pressing himself against her, and clearly felt his hard crotch on her lower back. She turned around and screamed, “What do you think you are doing?” Ramu rushed in after the hearing the shriek. “What is the matter sweetheart? What happened?”
Sunita ran over to Ramu and hugged him tight, breathing hard on his chest. Dinesh didn’t move.

“This man, this…pervert tried to get close…to me”. Sunita was outrageous and at the same time guilty of the fact that this episode would certainly create rifts between Ramu and his friend.

“What is this Dinesh? Go into the hall. Get out.”

Sunita was confused. She couldn’t believe Ramu’s reaction. In fact she thought she didn’t hear him right. She looked up at him with a mixed feeling of betrayal, anger and sadness. Ramu tried comforting her.

“Honey, he is just a little drunk. Please forgive him. This won’t happen again, I promise. Dinesh is one of my closest friends, he also gives me lot of my business, and I can’t afford to strain my relation with him. I am sure you would understand.”  
                                
Sunita retreated, shrugged his hand from her shoulder and exploded, “Ya I understand. I understand you are a selfish bastard. I understand that you just don’t care about me. This person violated me and you tell me that I should understand. Go screw yourself”. Sunita slammed her door behind her and crashed on the bed, face first, crying. All the past memories came rushing to her. All the nights when her father, the man who was supposed to take care of her, protect her, molested her. After some time, she heard Ramu banging on the door with all his might. He kept saying that he was sorry and it would never happen again. He even promised never to talk to Dinesh ever again. He begged her to let him in. Sunita’s heart went out to him, when she heard him weeping.

She immediately got up and opened the door, only to find all his friends standing right there, including Dinesh. She tried closing the door when she sensed what could happen, but all of them barged him, slammed Sunita on the bed and raped her. While all of them were crushing her dreams, her trust in people, her belief in god, and the little hope of finding true love, she heard Ramu bragging to his friends that he would let them have the same kind of fun every night for a fortnight, after which he would sell her to a brothel for some good money. She heard his strategy that always clicked for him. Ramu told them how hard it was for him to get her into his spell and also the fact that he has so far bought around 15 odd girls from the same village as Sunita’s. Her vagina hurt. It had become dry and numb. Yet the men kept shoving their penises one after the other for the whole night in turns. Sunita just lay there looking at the love of her life encouraging others to rape his wife. Not for once did he look at her. She saw his face, a face that was gleaming with pleasure.

At the end of the ordeal, he took money from all of them, looked back at the motionless figure, before leaving the room a satisfied man. The next few days were horrid for Sunita. Ramu would keep a plate of rice and some curry in her room in the morning to keep her alive and the evenings would be all the same. A night of brutality and barbarism. If she protested, Ramu would kick and punch her into submission. She would look at him for some semblance of love or at least pity, but would find none. I will never fall in love again she told herself.

Her body used to ache everyday. She even found it hard to pee. It took a laborious effort on her part to do so. One day while she was taking a bath, she looked at herself in the mirror and the face that looked back at her, disgusted her. It questioned her life, her meek surrender to her fate. When she asked what could she possibly do? It said run away and claim your life. The same evening when Ramu came back from work and opened the door, she hit him hard with a pestle and kept hitting until he fell on the ground bleeding and walked away.  

She knew no one in the city and had no money. She started walking. While aimlessly wandering around, she heard a gong in a distance. Mesmerized, she started going in that direction. She didn’t want to, but the vibrations just drew her. When she came close, she realized that the sound was coming from a church. She looked at the huge sculpture of Jesus Christ with anger, her eyes blazing like a heap of coal. “Don’t you even think that you can fool me with that innocent face? Why? Give me one good reason why I had to go through all that I have? What harm did I do to anyone? When my father violated me, I cried for your help, but you never turned up? When that bastard came along, oh I am sorry, no wait, I am not sorry. You sent him into my life and you are responsible for everything that has happened in my life. I didn’t choose to be raped and humiliated, to be standing like this in front of you. I am not going to beg you anymore, because it is not going to change anything. Look at me. Come on, open your eyes. Look at my bruised body, look what they have done to me. Are you ashamed of looking at me? Because I surely am. Now come on, open those eyes and LOOK AT ME,” she screamed. Just about then, a hand gently squeezed her shoulder. Startled, she turned around to find a kind looking man dressed in a pure white robe.

He immediately apologized for scaring her like that. “Child, I am Reverend Joseph.
God has his own ways. You and I shouldn’t question those ways.”

“His ways? I was...I was...put through hell all my life. My own so called father and husband violated me. He has to answer me today.”

“Trust me, he will,” replied Reverend Joseph, “but before that I want you come with me to the church’s centre, ‘Hope & Light’. Just come and have a look at it”.

“I don’t know what I want to do. I am just tired of all this.”

Reverend Joseph helped her up and led her to the shelter. The shelter had several rooms. One was stacked with bunk beds, the other, which was the biggest, had a few computers, sewing machines, machines for making candles and incense sticks, a packaging machine and an area for fixing electronic items, while the third room was the prayer room. There were a lot of young and old women at these machines, operating the equipments with ease. The shelter also had a huge garden with all kinds of flowers. There was also music and art room. As the reverend was showing Sunita around, she started liking the idea of staying here.

“Every morning the first thing we do is to pray and ask the lord for direction after which one person who is chosen randomly speaks about their experiences, their past, what they think about their future and try and forgive all those who have sinned against them. They cry, laugh, get angry, breakdown, curse, but the end of it all, they experience a release, a release of all the negativity and receive immense support from the other members here. It just makes it all easier and helps them move on. It makes them look at the world from a different perspective and helps them understand that every person has his/her own battle and that everybody goes through some problem or the other. The key lies in reaching out to others and helping them forget their sorrows, which in turn heals our own wounds.”

Sunita gradually molded herself into the routine and started keeping a journal. Every day she would write about her feelings, at the end of which she would feel relieved. She would feel as if a huge burden had been lifted off her chest. Every time she would reminisce the past, she would shudder. About three months would have gone by when Reverend Joseph asked Sunita to read out what she had written to other members. Sunita hesitated at first, but finally gave in. She nervously cleared her throat and begun.

“My name is Sunita and I am 17 years old. My life started falling apart when my mom died and my father married for the second time. I don’t know why my father would touch me in inappropriate areas. Initially I didn’t know what he was up to. I didn’t have any one to go to. Then the nights started getting worse. He started getting wilder with each night. Then one day when he tried to penetrate me, it hurt like hell. Every time he would do it, it tore a part of my soul. It felt like some blunt tool was being stabbed into me with all its force. When I bled, he stopped doing that. When I got out of there, I entered something even worse. My own husband forced his friends on me. I was miserable. This shelter has given me hope. The support that I have received here is something that I needed the most. May be what we go through in life is how it is supposed to be. Everything teaches you something. I still don’t understand why I was chosen, why I didn’t have a normal life, why I wasn’t born to loving parents, but I have made my peace with it. I have finally grown enough to forgive my father and husband. These are god’s ways. I am no one to question him. If he put me through that, he gave me this, he gave me you all, Reverend Joseph. I couldn’t have asked for more.”

When she finished and looked up, she saw all of them nodding with eyes flooded with tears. Every one stood up and applauded, hugging her in turns. Sunita spent the rest of her life serving the people at the shelter and taking care of all the other victimized women who became a part of ‘Hope and Light’.