Hey people in the house, I am back, sorry, we are back. We as in myself and Zee (MKrayZee). This lady is pure love I might say. Okay so we both did some brain storming and collaborated our thoughts on Nandini once again. Do drop by your take on whole thing that happened today 😳
RuBro - We need you back like a baws. Sigh.
Hashmi - Just die already 😳
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"Blame is the defense against powerlessness."
- Sandra Lee Dennis
A girl, all of 17 with the weight of the world on her shoulders but never giving up, always fighting - for herself, for her friends, for her brother, for her family, for the man she loves. A girl who does not complain. A girl who believes in good, in seeing the good side of people. In giving people chances, in forgiving and forgetting. A girl who prays. A girl who hopes. That is Nandini Murthy for you. Someone who has always been so positive, someone who took on all the troubles without once complaining because she could not bear her loved ones suffering. Someone who was willing to walk away from the man she loved because she believed she nearly took his dream away from him. That is Nandini Murthy for you. She stood without any fear when her friends were bullied. She planned and plotted against a friend to save her man. She stood with a girl who hated her to fight for a cause she believed in. That is Nandini Murthy for you. She is the strong willed, courageous and righteous girl with a heart who we all fell in love with. Today that Nandini is lost somewhere, within herself.
Nandini, the chirpy bubbly girl who believed that a mother can never harm her child, who believed in the purity of the student teacher relationships was to get a rude awakening. When a woman is assaulted, it may or may not leave scars on the body but it definitely leaves scars on her soul. And when she is assaulted by someone she respected, someone she considered trustworthy, someone familiar - then the scars takes a long time to heal.
Pandit was not just a man.
No.
He was a teacher. He was not just any teacher. He was a teacher Amms knew. Amms ka favourite student. Nandini may not have liked his method of teaching, but really what lines did he cross as a man to make her feel he was creepy? Her Amms trusted him. She trusted her Amms. How could she tell her Amms that he made her uncomfortable?
How many girls tell their parents about that creepy uncle who fondles them when he comes home to visit? How many girls tell the people they are close to about abuse they face at work? Do they make a hullabaloo when there is no clear evidence?
Nandini did not create a fuss. But she kept her distance. But alas! It was not going to benefit her. She was kidnapped. Bound. Gagged. Tied to a chair. Stuffed in a guitar case. Locked in a garage. By a teacher. By the man her Amms trusted. Not by any random guy. No. By someone who had a connection with the one parental figure she valued more than anyone else in the world.
The girl who took on everyone's troubles without complaining. The girl who never cried and cribbed about her own loss. The girl who smiled and dealt with life's problems. The girl who shone for everyone was shoved in darkness. For a whole night, with no route out. No hope.
If life was not fair to Manik, it was not fair to her either. But she still smiled and moved along. How is she supposed to react when everything she believes in is shaken?
When a woman is sexually assaulted, she goes into a shell. She retreats into herself. Because her confidence in herself is shaken. She feels worthless, she feels dirty. Is Nandini any different? Is she not a woman who was assaulted? She was touched by her captor. Touched. The touch that she perceived, that she saw, that she felt was vile. Her captor being someone she knew. Someone she never thought would do such a horrific thing to her. Someone she never thought would cross his line as a man. Because he was her teacher. HER TEACHER. How is she supposed to feel?
Wait. Don't answer that. Just do what I tell you to do now.
Try going to the place you are scared of the most. Did you feel the air passing by? Did you feel goose bumps on your skin? Did you hear those nonexistent footsteps nearby? Did you see that silhouette smiling menacingly?
Don't worry, don't fear, go straight. There at the end, yes right there, is the thing precious to you. Go on, be brave, you have to take that thing. You have to, because it's more important than your fears.
See, I told you, you will reach it. Now turn around and go back to where you came from. Try stepping ahead. Come on, you have to try, how can you behave like that? Till now you were fine reaching to this place so why can you not go back?
Want to know why? Because your fears overruled you when you achieved what you wanted.
That is how human works, that is how Nandini works too.
Nandini, as you all are saying, is a very self- righteous girl. She cannot see wrong and injustice happening in front of her. So, she stood strong, she numbed herself, she didn't let anything affect her while she focused on the task at hand - dealing with Pandit, stopping injustice.
She got justice. Pandit was put behind bars, now what? What can she now use to escape from facing what she went through? There is a void. There is nothing left to focus on. What is left to stop her from looking around at her fear ground? Nothing. No choice but to face it. No choice but to relive the nightmare that she went through.
The nightmare of being bound, gagged and thrown in to a dark place as your captor touches you. Those touches that have tainted her soul. Those touches that have scarred her life. Those touches, by that man made her question her ideals and beliefs. Those touches that make her question her own judgment of people. Those touches that made her feel worthless, feel disgusted and be ashamed of herself. Those touches that prohibit her from being able to look in the mirror, to her marred image. Those touches are her undoing.
This girl here is so lost, her self confidence shattered, her ability to smile so easily taken away from her, she also lost her ability to remember language of touch.
When you read some script you don't know, doesn't every alphabet feel the same to you? Don't you wonder how people can differentiate between those alphabets? Nandini is just the same case now. She cannot differentiate between touches. She cannot differentiate between the touch of Pandit and the touch of Manik. No one would be when they reel into the aftershock of such horrific incident.
Just like it takes time for you to learn new script, it will take time for her to reel back from the shock and recognize the difference between touches. She needs time and care and love, to erase the scars on her soul. She needs a mirror not her own to be whole again.
She is mere human, a girl who faced just so much in such a short while, she deserves to be insensible. She deserves to be selfish.
"But sometimes, when she'd be all by herself, walking home late in the evening on a crowded street she'd be afraid of her own shadow following her..."
Sanhita Baruah
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