A fair warning: This is not one of my usual jolly, self-deprecating pieces. It’s sombre and melancholic because the story I heard recently from someone was just so sad. It makes me wonder why some of us take such a perverse delight in hurting each other.
This person said that someone she values very much told her that her life is a failure. She has tried hard, so hard, to do the best she can for those who matter. She said she cried non-stop for two nights, while her sister tried to console her and her best friend told her she was proud of her for having the courage to make things happen, rather than conform to society.
The woman I speak of was sexually abused at the age of nine. While still a very young teenager, she was married off to a man twenty years older than her, whose previous divorce was still to come through, with two children from that first marriage! The age difference between her and the man’s older son was only two years! She has been abused physically, mentally and emotionally. There are no records of this, no photographs or graphic videos. She is not in therapy, not on medication; she fights this alone, because depression is a luxury she cannot allow herself to succumb to. All the instances, all the data, is in her head; the stories she keeps carefully locked away, because the edge of the abyss always beckons.
What “wholeness” can we hope for from someone who is so fractured herself? Despite such trauma, the woman I speak of has gone on to be a wife and a mother, ran a beautiful home and is also professionally occupied. And so, what I would like the protagonist of my story to tell her detractors is: ‘I am sorry if you feel I let you down. Perhaps I did; Life does not come with a manual on how to handle relationships. Anybody else who has gone through all that I have would have buckled under a long time ago. But – I am not a failure. I am a person in my own right’.
One of my male friends was sexually abused at the age of eight by his own uncle, his chachaji. I recently met a lovely young woman who had a similar tale to tell. Sadly, there are countless such tales I could recount! Countless tales of pain, suffering and yet, these people are still alive, still functioning; they could be warped, maybe even dysfunctional, but they still have much to give.
We are so quick to judge those who don’t fall into societal moulds, who don’t conform to what we’re conditioned to think is the ‘correct’ way to be. Who are these moral guardians of conscience and are they always so perfect, so faultless, themselves? Before we are so harsh on someone, we should imagine ourselves in that same situation, walk a mile in that person’s shoes – what would we do differently, when all options are almost closed off?
‘You’re a failure’. It’s a very harsh, arbitrary statement to make. And anyone who has to say this to someone else has a very myopic view of life, in my opinion; in fact, I’d go so far as to say that person is rather pathetic and deserves pity for speaking so harshly to someone else. Failing at one thing – or four – in life, does not make a person a failure; you just failed at that one thing.
Someone who can still revel in the cooling fresh fragrance of the first rain, who can delight in a baby’s gurgle, who can make a toothless old lady on a random train journey smile, who can still exclaim in wonder at the perfection of a budding flower…someone who can do crazy things like eat pizza for breakfast or watch movies back-to-back…a person who still has so much love and warmth to share, who brings joy to even one other sentient being …how can that person be a failure?
Someone who is able to live his or her life with integrity and compassion, able to face himself/herself in the mirror, someone who was the reason for YOU to smile even once – no. That person is not a failure.
