Memoir – Chocolate

J,

I can’t bear to spell out your name. I see you clearly, even now.
Dark, pimple scarred, a smooth voice.
You were a neighbour, my Godmother’s brother.
About the same age as my uncles.
But unlike them.

I remember the day at WT.
You chose to come home at a time when there was no one around.
No kid playing in the common corridor.
No aunty hanging out the clothes.
No vendor selling biscuits and toast.

It was early evening.
I was back from school, alone, reading or studying.
You called out to me and let yourself in.
(I hadn’t locked the front door)
You gave me a chocolate, bolted the door behind you.
Foreign chocolate.
Funny that otherwise you or your family never gave me a square
nor even a spoonful of that delicious strawberry jam that I saw
at your table when you all had breakfast.

You caught my hand holding out the chocolate,
you asked me to sit on your knee.
I was in Std VI. 11 years old.
You were around 24.

I had grown up with boys.
My uncles were your age.
I sat at the edge of your bony knee.

I found it odd that you were now shivering.
A big man, a Radio Officer on the ship, shivering in front of a little school girl.
Your breath felt hot against my ear, my hair.
You didn’t touch my budding breasts, you came close.
I sensed that something didn’t feel right.
I felt uncomfortable.
After a few minutes, I said, “I want to go.”
I knew that I had to escape this odd game.
I don’t remember eating the chocolate.

I tried telling mum in the evening but the words wouldn’t come out.
At night, sleeping beside her on the mattress on the floor,
she sensed something was wrong.
I wanted to be held. Tight. Very tight.
She listened but she didn’t confront you.
You were a respected God fearing family,
your dad, a retired accountant, your elder brother, a banker,
your sister, my Godma married to a businessman in Africa…

Perhaps, mum didn’t want a confrontation.
Perhaps, she was scared, a poor young widow.
Perhaps she was worried that my uncles would have hammered you.

Mum told our good neighbour, Gemma what had happened.
Gemma became my watchdog, my pit-bull.
She’d take a casual stroll in the long corridor, checking in on me.
Mum was at work, the sole breadwinner after dad died.
My uncles were at their jobs.
My grandparents had settled in Goa by then.
I was instructed to lock myself in.
Not to open the door to you.

The wolf was on the prowl, again.
Another day when the coast was clear.
You called out my name.
You waved your paw through the bars of the window,
and showed me another bar of chocolate.
I told you, “I didn’t want the chocolate.
Mummy has told me not to open the door to you.”

You didn’t trouble me after that.
But when I exchanged notes with my best friend,
my friend who had left WT for Bandra,
she told me that you had taken advantage of her too.
You had let loose your animal self on her young soul too.

I’ve seen you sometimes after that.
I was there for your wedding because I had to attend it.
You married a beautiful talented lady who played the guitar and
sang with a heavenly voice on stage that day.
The few times we met socially and I had to proffer my cheek,
I could feel you trembling behind the Judas kiss.

I’ve heard that you have a son and a daughter.
I want to ask, “Did you sneak up on your daughter’s friends
when they had a sleepover?”
“Could your nieces trust you when they sat on your lap?
“Did you feel sorry…did you ever confess?”

I had a lucky escape.
And then later, lucky escapes from a tuition teacher and
a boss in my early working years.

When the tuition teacher touched my cheek, I wished I was ugly.
When he placed his hand on my thigh, I dug my nails into his hand.
When the boss held my hand, I walked out, saying, “I am not that type of girl.”

These experiences taught me that I had power.
I could say no.
The tutor apologised saying, “I am probably the first rascal you will meet in life.”
The boss said that I had led him on.
He was a divorcé, a father of a seven year old boy.
He even had a mistress to boot.
I was in my mid-twenties.

Predators never take responsibility for their actions.
They blame our short dresses.
Our late nights out.
Our forwardness. Our backwardness.
Any and everything except their lust for young blood.
Their desire to control us.
Their urge to teach us a lesson.
To break us.

Bilkis Bano, Munro’s daughter, Andrea…
Nirbhaya, Moumita…
my nameless, countless sisters,
I’m sorry you were not so lucky.
86 sisters are reported to be raped every day in India.
I’m sorry we do nothing except hold candlelight marches,
torch buildings, declare bandhs.

We garland the wolves,
elect them to office
we give them power to fuck the lives of
our mothers, wives, daughters, granddaughters.

I wish we had reported you, J.
Maybe we could have saved a few innocent girls from your scars.
Maybe we could have dug out a grave of chocolate and let the ants loose on you.

B

This work was written during the Ochre Sky Memoir writing workshop facilitated by Natasha Badhwar and Raju Tai.