TW: Sexual Abuse
“Guilt” plays a major role throughout the lives of Child Sexual Abuse survivors. I tried to highlight that element in my poem. This guilt ignites a painful trauma and puts a blank on the very first chapter of an innocent child’s journey, which is why I decided to name this poem as “My First Chapter”.
While I was in the second year of my college and was part of The Dramatics Society, SRCC, the team decided to direct a street theatre production on Child Sexual Abuse. During the initial months of our research, we met child psychologists, visited child-shelter homes, and had in-depth conversations with the teammates who had been through the abuse. These multiple interactions made me understand the underlying guilt and pain which almost every individual (the ones I interacted with) carried along. The play I was part of was called The First Chapter, and as ironic as it sounds, I played the character of the protagonist’s Chacha who sexually abused his nephew Mohan for more than ten years.
I wrote this poem around 2018, and,this is not my story. But after reading and listening to multiple narratives of Child Sexual Abuse around the world through the internet and meeting them personally, I made an attempt to compile these striking thoughts and present. This story is the story of Mohan and a lived reality of hundreds of children who have gone through and are still going through this monstrous phase.
I chose to record this poem after almost 2 years, during this quarantine period—as a reminder to myself and the world that “boredom” and our “Netflix issues” must be the least of our concerns during the COVID-19 lockdown. Why? Because a recent report says the government’s childline helpline has received more than 92,000 SOS calls in the first week of lockdown—March 20–31, asking for protection from abuse and violence. Thus, this lockdown is very difficult on so many levels, not just for many women who are suffering domestic violence but also for children trapped with their abusers at home.
While we are in the middle of a pandemic, there are innumerable conflicts to worry about—but the structural violence inflicted upon the vulnerable individuals is another major challenge. To put it forward in laymen language, as the UN chief put it, “Violence is not confined to the battlefield.”
If you take out your time to watch this till the end, please write your views as that would mean the world to me. If you like this or don’t, OR just have an opinion about this, please feel free to write your feedback, and also, share with the ones you feel this will help to realize that guilt is not for them to feel. They are much much more than that.