Bitter chocolate
The first response while reading Pinky Virani's Bitter Chocolate is: revolting!
Bitter Chocolate by Pinky Virani Penguin Books, 2000 245p INR 295
But then truth seldom is palatable. And it is unlikely that Virani wants to sugar coat reality. The reality as it stands is that child sexual abuse does exist in India and—as the hook reveals—about 20 percent of boys and girls under the age of sixteen are being regularly sexually abused in their own homes. The perpetrators of the crime are usually people who have the child's trust, uncles, neighbours and sometimes parents too. And shockingly. it occurs in the "it can't happen to us" families: the crimes take place in middle and upper class families who not only sexually abuse their children hut also browbeat them into submission and silence.
Pinky Virani, a journalist, shot to fame with her debut Aruna's Story. the true story of a young nurse comatose for fifty years, reduced to a human vegetable after being raped by her colleague at the hospital she worked in. The book created a storm and plumbed the depths of the torture a woman raped may have to go through. Virani continues her tryst with truth. And the truth begins at home; the hook opens with an account of the author's own experience.
She writes: I had, and still have, to deal with my—I hate the use of the personal pronoun in this context—abuser. And it is only now, after the detailing for this hook, that I realise and recollect why I have so many marks on my legs, between the knees and calves, where they could he seen when I wore dresses and skirts. …I have no compulsion to tell the world about the sexual abuse in my childhood. I refuse to be a victim.
Brave revelation, and totally devoid of self pity. But Virani thinks that she has no reason to be so; it is the doer rather than the sufferer who should undergo the trauma of defilement of body and soul. And this is the cause the author champions in her book.
The book is thoroughly researched. Virani has travelled extensively throughout the country, interviewing child psychologists, mental health professionals, social workers, lawyers, doctors and victims themselves. In fact, some of the children and adults she interviewed who had such horrifying tales to tell that Virani had to expunge much of these portions in order to avoid falling foul of India's obscenity laws! But what amazes is the fact that laws often are either too flaccid or inadequate to punish the culprit. But more than laws, it is society and usually also parents who refuse to stand up against the accuser for fear of upsetting the family cart. And Virani takes issue with this. Her hook makes us aware of the fact that a child has to he watched all the time and any change in his/her behaviour must he dealt with and immediately.
Bitter Chocolate gives some valuable pointers on how to watch for warning signs of sexual abuse. Sudden interest in a child by a person close to a family, seemingly inexplicable fear in a child towards a person, sudden change in behavioural traits. If any of your children displays even one of the above the symptoms, it is time to watch out. There could be possible sexual abuse there. And yes, your child could be a victim. The fulcrum on which this first-of-its-kind hook on sexual abuse rests is the fact that sexual abuse trancends all classes. The point which the book drives hard repeatedly is that it is a fallacy to think that sexual abusers come only from the lower strata of society like drivers, mailmen, delivery men, servants and the like.
Virani gives hard-hitting examples to dispel the misconception: in a Delhi court a child has been cross-questioned by a battery of lawyers hired by her bureacrat father. "Which linger did your papa put into you? This one, or this one?" The court dismissed the case on the grounds that a person holding a responsible and respectable position could not do such thing. The aftermath? Today this girl not only hates Papa, but all men. h makes for disturbing reading and it is hard not to put the book down.
The book is divided into three notebooks. The first notebook explains what child sexual abuse is about and the devastating and often lasting effect it has on the victims. The second part describes these effects through true accounts of women who were violated as children by the men of the household and how they are still trying to grapple with its consequences. The third offers practical solutions on fighting sexual abuse of children. It gives in detail what the legal system has to offer and how both the parent and child can use it to their benefit. It conies as a bit of surprise that there are already several laws which can help in taking action against child sexual abuse. They are the Indian Penal Code, The Immoral Traffic in Women (Prevention) Act, the Juvenile Justice Act, and even the Indian Post Office Act (invoked in a case when pornographic material was being sent to a child by his neighbour!) apart from other international conventions.
For the people confronted with sexual abuse there is a useful section on help-line. Virani's book ends with some help-lines based in several cities which a person in need can approach. Providing a help-line is being optimistic—Virani hopes that her book will be successful in making parents and guardians more aware to sexual abuse.
But more than mere awareness it is the courage to fight back which is required. Often parents or guardians do notice what is happening but are too scared to point a linger at the perpetrator, either because of financial dependence or due to social pressures. Or simply because they consider it implausible. She (Razia) insists she is being continuously sexually molested by her male cousin when he visits their home. Her ammee says, "He is my very own sister's son. You should be ashamed of yourself for saying this." Keep quiet or I shall tell your abba who will beat you up for talking such rubbish, then he will stop you from going to your painting classes on Sundays.' A few months later Razia commits suicide and the postmortem reveals a three-month-old foetus in her broken body. Razia's is an extreme case but also a frightening reality. It makes the point that every child must be heard and taken seriously.
It would have been so easy for a book with theme such as Virani's to become sensational or titillating. It goes to her credit that she avoids that. The real life examples serve to underscore the point she makes throughout the book. It also makes the other point that the Indian child's experience of abuse was no different than that elsewhere aside from one important aspect: "Because ours is a patriarchal society we can't talk about it. In the case of child sexual abuse we hoped it would go away. India's no different in that respect, except that it has never been brought out into the open."
Virani's book does precisely that. Brings an issue out of the closet which the close knit, patriarchal Indian family often masks. Her book also makes it very obvious that not all chocolate growing up years need be sweet. Some of them can be very bitter.