We watch movies. The protagonist loses a father at a young age, is raped, and drugged. Her/his life takes a bad turn. The whole youth, an innocent childhood that could have been, wasted. In the end, she/he kills the bad guy, one-shot, a maximum of 4-6 hours of pain, and the Gabbars, Mogambos gone, 25 years of pain dealt with. Happy ending.
I have never been convinced of the justice in this. The life that could have been, is still not. 25 years of pain, the unaccountable waste, just doesn’t feel outdone by 6 hours of vengeful satisfaction. There are dark spots in the movie of my life, that the home of my childhood is trying to bring to the foreground of my awareness. Defense mechanisms fight back, but I still have this hazy picture coming to me. Trying to deal with her maniac attacks. The hurt caused. Every time I was hit as a child, times I was fed vomit, taken away from friends, and dumped into trains, without consent. The de-addiction center we hoped would help Schizophrenia. The other one that did, but also probably hurt her, negatively reinforced the sickness out of her. The times she fell on people’s feet begging to not be taken there, this powerful woman who wouldn’t blink in the face of a blizzard. The times she tried to fight 4 men and the medicines in their hands. My childhood was spent blaming myself for everything. The astrophysicist that I could have been, is all a hazy image now. We have suffered this struggle and in the end, found medicines and words. Words that help heal.
But every time a boy says ‘It wasn’t fair what happened,’ a Prachi falls to her knees and sobs. From her spinal cord. So we never talk about it. But when we do, our eyes water. When our eyes water we say ‘…but thank god.’ We never expected to get this far. Never thought we would see a day of fulfillment and peace. But we have. So thank god, the medicines and the words or the luck we must have inherited. Thank you but it has been 23 years of pain. And I, for one, am not fucking convinced of the justice.