Revenge (A Short Story) - Part 1

He was walking down the street completely lost in his thoughts. His name is Ganesh and he works as a regional manager in a bank. This is what happened to his sister earlier that night.

His sister, Poornima, is doing her MBA and has been dating one of her classmates for the last five years. They both plan to get married once Poornima finishes her MBA. Normally, Poornima goes to college in her moped but since it broke down, she took the bus that day. She had to stay late to get one of her assignments done in the library that day and was waiting at the bus depot to come home around 9 pm that night. Ganesh or her boyfriend would have given her a ride but one was busy at work and the other one was out of town. So she had to wait for the bus that late in the night. The bus depot was deserted and that was making Poornima a little anxious. But the bus should be here any minute, she kept thinking.

Instead of the bus, a guy in his mid-thirties walked by. He looked the usual kind but his eyes were intensely angry. Poornima always notices people's eyes as she thinks that they are the windows to a person's soul. She did not want to chit-chat and so she did not make any eye contact.

The guy who walked by Poornima is Anand who has been dumped by her fiancee just today. She had said that he was not daring enough (man enough) for her. He could not take this very well and was just wandering around when he saw Poornima.

Seeing Poornima, who reminded him very much of his fiancee, made him angrier - both at himself and at his fiancee. He wanted to do something to take out his anger. And so he did the unthinkable.

He went and stood by Poornima and kept inching closer to her when she started moving away. Small steps became a walk and then a run and Anand kept chasing her. Poornima made the mistake of going into a back alley that was mostly dark and completely deserted. She was so scared that she didn't even think about calling somebody on her cellphone. Once they got into the alley, he picked up his speed and came very close to her.

He pushed himself against her and she could feel his hardness. Now she was really scared. She tried to get out of his hold and that didn't work as he was quite strong. She tried to bite him but that was not effective either. Now he was unzipping his pants and thrusting himself against her and she could not take it anymore. She had tried everything she could and did not know what else to do but she was so angry, so sad and so lost now. He did what he wanted to do like an animal and when he was done, there was that one second when they made eye contact. She looked at him like he was the worst creature on the face of the earth and he looked at her like he had accomplished something. Then he left.

She just laid there for about 15 minutes. She was thinking that the author who wrote that if a woman ever finds herself being raped, she should try to enjoy it, was a moron. She did not know what to do but got up slowly after some time and walked up to the main road and looked around for an auto or taxi. There were a few people walking around that gave her a suspicious look as she was still disheveled, in spite of her best efforts to clean up. Luckily, an auto came soon and she got on it. The auto driver gave her a cheap look but she didn't care.

She reached home in 10 minutes and she kept thinking how different it would have been if she had just taken the auto in the first place instead of waiting for the bus. All this to save 20 rupees. Her mom was in the kitchen and so Poornima just ran into her room and locked it. She usually likes a little alone time when she gets home and so her mother wouldn't think anything about it. She laid down on her bed and kept staring at the ceiling. There were too many incoherent thoughts going through her mind and her head started to ache. She removed her clothes and threw them in the trash as she did not want anything to do with that guy and went to the shower. She took a long shower and came into the kitchen. When she saw her mother, she had to muster all her strength not to cry. But she went and hugged her mother, which was unusual and her mother teased her about it.

Her boyfriend called after some time and she managed to chit chat with him quite effectively. She was surprised at her own resilience but she did not want to give in. She kept telling herself that she should not let this unfortunate incident ruin her whole life. As her boy friend was very tired, the phone conversation was short. Then her brother Ganesh came and he immediately knew that there was something wrong. They both have shared a special relationship and are best friends. When they got a moment alone, Ganesh asked her what was going on. Her immediate reaction was to lie but she decided to tell everything to her brother as she wanted so badly to share it with someone.

Ganesh listened to the whole story in a deafening silence. When she came to the end, he asked her if she knew who it was. She said no. Then he asked her what she was going to do about it. And she kept staring at the wall and then said (after what seemed like a very long time) "nothing". This infuriated Ganesh who kept shouting "how can you not do anything and let him get away with it". She said that she didn't want everybody around her to get hurt because of this and also that she might not even be able to identify the perpetrator. Their mom called them for dinner and so they both calmed down and went to the kitchen.

This is why Ganesh was so lost in his thoughts. He was quite impressed at how his sister was handling this, which was quite different from the character in that book he recently read, who wanted to commit suicide after getting raped. He had a lot of anger in him and wanted to do something about it but did not know what. He realized that his sister has to move on with her life and can't throw away her life because of a single event (no matter how big an event it was). But still, there needs to be some consequence for an act like this, right? Ganesh thought so as he entered the neighborhood park.

(To be continued)