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When I was a little girl, I equated rape with death. The movies (and bad pulp fiction and even comics) were to blame, of course. I did not know yet that men - and children - got raped too and I was too young to know what rape meant, yet I was convinced that if a woman was raped, either she got killed, or she had to kill herself. The only other alternative was to die whilst fighting the rapists.
Nobody told me this. It was just an association of ideas. (For instance, thanks to Hindi movies, I also used to think that if someone saw you naked, you had to get married to him). While I was growing up, there was no concept of life, post-rape. The idea that a rape victim might want to live, and might want relationships and kids and so on at some point in the future, just didn't occur to us. It wasn't just me. It didn't occur to classmates or cousins either (if it did, they kept it a closely guarded secret). Our films didn't show us. The books we were allowed to read didn't show us. And no adult even mentioned the word 'rape' or 'sex' in our presence.
I did have a vague idea that it was the police were supposed to do something about it but rarely did, and that this failure led husbands or brothers or beloveds to take up arms and seek bloody vengeance. I also remember thinking that it had to be the worst thing that could happen to you, because not only could you not do anything about it, you also had to kill yourself. It didn't get worse than that, did it?
In my teens, I watched a few movies where an alternative was presented - you married your rapist. Or rather, he married you. You even got to sing songs through the whole mucky business. (It is worthwhile noting at this juncture that the Supreme Court of India, even today, is having to pass orders that specify that an offer to marry a rape victim doesn't mean bail for the rapist.)
The first time these odd ideas were shaken off their perch was when I saw Zakhmi Aurat (Wounded Woman). I cannot remember how old I was. I still didn't have a clue about what rape meant but with this film, two things came undone. One, the way the rape itself was treated. Until then, rape scenes meant actresses were running - usually in sarees or lehenga-cholis, sometimes in slow motion - or attempting to crawl backwards as they lay on the floor or bed, wherever they had been tossed. The villian would be struggling to pull away her pallu. Even when I was little, I used to wonder why the girl spent so much time and energy holding on to the fabric, clutching it to her chest, saying 'Let go!'; why didn't she just drop the saree and run?
I have seen Zakhmi Aurat only once. But that rape scene has never left my memory. Here was a young woman who dressed in pants. A cop, in fact. And she was being gang-raped inside her own house. She wasn't just somebody being used to satiate a villian's ungovernable lust. She was being deliberately humiliated. In fact, she wasn't just being humiliated. She was being physically hurt. This was the first time I remember thinking: "Oh my god, they are going to break her bones, or crack open her skull."
This was the first time I saw a film that showed the trauma of life after. Because, instead of hanging herself from the ceiling fan, leaving an accusatory note behind, or complaining to her brother about her stolen 'izzat' and how she was no longer fit to show her face, this victim was still living in her own house where different objects and spaces were constant reminders of her pain and humiliation.
Most significantly, this was the only movie I had seen thus far in which a victim takes some action barring murder. She puts together a vigilante gang of women who have been raped themselves or whose family members have been. They start kidnapping rapists and castrating them. Surgically, mind you, with the man being placed under anasthesia.
It was much later that I found out that this was supposed to be a controversial
