11:30 pm, 31
March, 2012
I was engrossed in an interesting
book. There was an unexpected power cut. But I continued with the book as once
the conflict comes, you can't resist yourself. Everyone was saying that
"How can Swati asleep this early?" I continued my read with the zero
light coming from the cell phone screen giving special attention to each word
as if they are in red carpet with special light thrown on each of them.
Three people had their birthday
on the top floor. All were screaming, dancing, playing songs, chatting and
making noise in their peahen voice. Soon all people joined them.
Richa stays at First Floor, next
to my room. There was no one around her in first floor except me. While the
others on the first floor preferred to join the birthday bash, after all
darkness must be enjoyed.
Being alone and scared, she sat
on the stair case. Richa was scared to stand by in the dark. Her room was small
and that too her roomy was not in the room. It was suffocating and dark. It was
the irritating mosquito noise and that mosquitoes themselves black, not like
firefly. Her phone battery was discharging with maximum capacity of 20 minutes
left in it and so was her desktop. After a while, UPS starts alarming, and
asked her to switch it off.
It was around 11:50 pm by that
time. She tried to resist herself to be unruffled and tranquil from a massive
trouble. She came out of the room and couldn’t abide the blare and noisy things
around and walked back to her room. The darkness was troubling her. She was
exasperated as felt obscure everywhere. Her grown up habit of locking and
unlocking the phone repeatedly started again. She repeated the same not just to
relieve her tensed mind but to get some light out of her phone screen.
The owner scolded everyone making
noise on the top floor and it turned “Darkness plus Silence”. The color and
sound both faded and left her blank. The dimensions of sound and visibility
were not working, so was the Third Dimension which constitutes her feelings within.
She can only perceive sound of two time beep whenever the mobile alerts for the
‘Battery Down’ surplus some light.
She came out and stood on
mezzanine floor, the middle of the stair, where people generally stops or keep
luggage. She sat there and the light was coming from a street on the back of
hostel, quite enough to make her feel like breathing.
She called Maitri, her best
friend. By her tone of voice, Maitri inferred that something is wrong with her.
Maitri asked her many times. Richa's voice chocked for few seconds. Richa asked
Maitri to chat by message.
Richa text: I am afraid of
darkness, as I have undergone a tragic incidence.
Maitri being worried kept her
calling but Richa not ready to pick the phone.
Richa text: “RAPE”
Maitri was shocked and checked
the message thrice.
Maitri text: Don’t be stupid, it
is 1st April; sharp 12:00 am now.
Maitri was worried and kept
calling Richa. Maitri was very well acquainted that this Richa can't cut these
types of jokes but it turned hard for Maitri to accept this.
It was ringing but cut down. Why
Richa is disconnecting it?
Maitri dropped her a message
"Receive my call"
At last Richa received her call,
her voice was wrecked, she was sobbing, crying and there were sounds of
frequent deep breaths, in order to control her tears.
Maitri kept her busy in talking
stupid thing but Richa was terrified of darkness and loneliness she was feeling
at that moment. While, others were enjoying the night and few were asleep, she
was crying and trying to absorb her tears in eyes itself by taking deep
breathes.
Maitri called her back.
"This number is switched off. Kindly try after some time."
Matitri was worried and kept
trying the number just to relax Richa.
Richa on the other side, managed
to find out a small old torch in her closet, which didn’t support her a lot,
but the light was dim and helping her to stay inside the room just like the
proverb: "Tinke Ka sahara Kaafi hota hai"
She had some birthday candles
kept in her room, she lit them one by one but soon they got exhausted. The
candles were beautiful with a smiley on top of them. The smiley top of the
candle melted, melting the phobia of Richa. But she felt like crying as all she
can see is her smiling face burned in the fire of someone’s desire.
She was out of candles and torch
battery. She was out of phone battery and desktop.
All she had was a small match
box; she kept burning sticks one by one taking from the box and wished that
power must be back till the last one. As she was approaching towards the last
stick, she prayed simultaneously to God, “I believe you are here and you will
never leave me alone. I wish when this last stick is burning, you will spread
the white light after massive darkness”.
She kept crying and her tears
were continuously rolling down her cheeks. Her prayers were unheard by God.
She again started feeling out of
breathes, phobia of darkness and troubling time. She saw a key chain with night
vision radium sticker on it. She took that in her hands and started praying to
God, keeping her eyes tightly closed. Nothing was helping her to come out from
childhood the trauma and the darkness made her dip into to the tints of past
incidences.
It was 2:30 am, but there was no
beam of light she could see. She again started to weep.
Power was back, it was 2:35 am.
She jumped out of the bed wiping
her tears, she kept her phone on charging and called Maitri to tell her that
power is back. She was feeling a bit
fine.
Maitri texted: Was all that true
Richa?
Richa text: Yess it is. I felt
like I am in a trauma or somewhere in a haunting house where happenings anguish
me or I am in a cemetery, where a ghost (Rapist) follows me and tries to
physically torture and sexually harass me.
Richa texted: Sorry, I disturbed
you a lot. I wish I couldn’t but at that moment, there was no one around me.
You helped me out like an angel.
Mairti texted: Be strong and
don’t cry.
Richa texted: You won’t
understand, but it hurts.
Maitri texted: I do understand,
as I have undergone the same situation many times, but I am healed with time.
There was a long silence on the
phone and again another power cut.
(Richa told me this story when
there was power cut for the second time. She saw that I was not asleep; she
came to me, hugged me tight and started crying. She was neither ready to listen
to me nor ready to speak out. I gave her tranquilizers which she generally
takes. Her hug was enough to show me the depth of twinge of sexual harassment
on her, which still harasses her, whenever it goes complete dark.)
Real names of both are withheld
in the story. Please stop sexual harassments and abuse.
Swati
Shobha Sevlani
Some say SSS, some say Swati. Different tags from everyone.
Angles are many and changed with every single degree. I love to laugh, live and
love. But turn off to hates, lies and drugs. I simply rove around different
places. Seeing sunrises, sunsets, photography, art, cuisines, animals, nature
and water bodies. I am bit complicated human being with a long mandatory Bucket
List.
To know about her visit her blog :
1 comments:
Very touchy and true words good job
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