So after fighting to my wits end with torrents which just refused to download straight up for me some n times, I finally managed to watch the episode, and even if I'm going to push in my essay much belatedly, I obviously must. The episode was worth much more than the patience I thought I was tested for making it work.
I want to start by saying something that I felt with MUCH more impact today, that last time. Watching Satyamev Jayate is a tough task. There's a part of me which was active almost all through the week past, going to back to this detail and that of the show, at witnessing/hearing random instances in and around my routine. Odd things just stood out for me and reminded me of something or the other the episode had reiterated. So that by the time Sunday was here, my anticipation of this next episode was at least partly worked up.
Watching the episode has multiplied that effect. While last time was dealing with an issue where half of the victim's end (the fetus) gets eliminated from the picture so you can only hear an account from the remaining half (mother) - today was like bearing the complete impact. The victim, all in all one entity, was out there talking about every aspect of the suffering, and I'm not trying to compare the issues or rank them in priority, but just saying that this episode for me was far more disturbing to just have to watch.
A part of the reason could be that the society, strata, zone, and culture I come from, faces this problem far more than female infanticide. Perhaps I connect more with the victims, because I know how I've seen their kind around me in the years of growing up, the empathy and impact multiplies manifold.
And I say watching this show is tough, and takes resolve, because there's just something inside of me that it rankles up. At least today did, so much, that at certain points I just had to pause the video before I could resume watching.
Points like Harish talking about how his dog became his sole savior. Perhaps, from growing up as a child and an adult who has never really been without a dog (occasionally more than one) I just teared up to the thought. And I have to honest and admit, that even as I was shocked and overwhelmed last time, despite what everyone had to say, I hadn't found myself cry even once. And I'd assumed that was just me not crying... but the moment Harish started narrating the bit with Jimmy today, how the dog would understand, know, and want to heal him, how he could just pour out EVERYTHING in words there, before that mute creature, how Jimmy would lick away and drink all the tears - I was crying before I even realized my eyes had fogged too much to see distinctly anymore. It was like I could watch the scene play out, this young boy and his dog, this young sexually abused boy, who's only vent and friend is this mute dog who can't speak, can't advice, but still shares the pain in a way so tangible, that somewhere, Harish has emerged the survivor. A survivor who has some edge in overcoming the trauma when compared with someone like Ganesh, who feels so tired, and so incapable of really letting the past go. Not deleting it - that's beyond impossible I reckon - but somehow letting it go to revive a real peace in ones own life. Somehow, Ganesh seemed like a victim who was still fighting it out, while Harish seemed like a victim who had made a much greater degree of peace with what was past. And somehow, that person in me who has not known life without dogs could see into the psyche of Harish, and how it had worked out a tad better for him, despite the formidable agony of it all, no less than Ganesh's. I'm not trying to hail the dog community, or the pet lovers here. No. I'm just talking about my personal reaction to that part, the uncannily vivid imaging of it that struck me in my mind's eye parallel to his narrative and the way it hit ALL the more, as if the dog's healing had made me empathize many levels deeper with the abused boy himself...
There's also something about Cindy's part I want to point out. At one point, I almost marveled how clinically she could get out with her suffering. She cried and lost voice at some point, but just in general, she seemed so much okay with how she had settled with her past, that it astounded me mildly. And then she said the simplest and most obvious thing, which made all the sense. How venting was VERY important in these cases. Suddenly it made sense, that she seemed so healed of her scars. It made sense that she could put the vindication past herself believing the abuser would deal with that and all his share; that she could even laugh and make a joke about finding the right guy through this show after hearing her very shocking truth. Yes, Cindy has come a longer way than the others, because she has shown greater courage than them in sharing it. Her narrative seemed like it still pained her to a point that she couldn't stop the tears, but also seemed like something she had now done, few enough times! Somewhere, I try to imagine bottling it all up inside of oneself for years and years and years, how talking about it would become tougher with passing time, because the greater ones sensibility, the harder to address such agonizing chapters not to mention the greater the seeming reactions and fall outs or at least an apprehension of both... A child of 10 may feel ineffably reclusive and incapable of describing him/her self, but an adolescent of 16/18 may feel an added and much more far reaching aspect of shame too, with an understanding of it, and a courage to share it hence dimmer than ever... Somehow, reaching the point where you can assert and say, not me but the abuser deserves to rot, may be consequence of a moment's snapping, but getting there likely a long haunted way... Cindy's spirit to not have confronted it, but done so occasionally (it seemed to me) to the point that she could revive her own person in some way, deserved an applause.
I also want to address this other point that hit me very bad. Harish's mother's confession, and consequent advice to parents to stand by their children and not make her mistake. For obvious reasons, I felt so strongly for that woman. A mother, who couldn't have wanted or even tolerated her child's abuse in that manner, yet someone who in hindsight realizes how poorly she failed her ward. Living with that cross for a lifetime... felt like such an inevitable but way too harsh penance for her once upon a time lack of belief. While the victim himself can at some point reason himself out of any guilt or blame and get over the worst, the mother herself has no such solace. And all the blame to find in herself. For all her error of judgment, it seemed like such a harsh situation being her too...
Yet another moment that stood out for me was Aamir giving Ganesh a hug. Not in terms of Aamir's gesture (Which was yes, very touching and spontaneous and the kind of moment that just sort of stand out like a silver lining) but in terms of Ganesh accepting the hug. Somehow, I couldn't but think of him as this man who still seemed such a long way from being sufficiently healed (I can't imagine a complete healing process in these things, to be honest) and after being so multiple affected by a male abuser of several years, I wondered what it would be like for him to even receive a hug from another male - even if Aamir Khan himself. I tried to think what it could be like for him, being a male, around males, in any kind of vicinity - and how he survived what must have become an intuitive alert and aversion, even bodily evoked apprehension perhaps, and got along being normal the best he could. Like accepting that hug. How does one get past such a long lasting experience and teach himself to trust again? I couldn't but wonder in that moment...
The session with Dr. Mitra just took me directly to thinking of what had been lingering in my head all through the episode (almost) - Nabakov's Lolita. For those who've read the book, you know why I refer to it. For those who haven't, if you were thought-wise provoked enough by today's episode, please do read it. It's disturbing, to say the least, and even as the literature student in me has been trained over the years to read a book looking beyond the story into aspects of its creation like expression, coherence, building, the layout and writing at large, it was one of the few books where I had a constantly hard time concentrating of "literary tools" because the story itself was just hard to treat in that clinical manner. Perhaps cause I first read it as a 16 year old, and had a vary hard time trying to not fathom the danger even on my ownself. I remember being so haunted by the concept itself for some days, that I was torn between the need to talk out and discuss it with someone, and not being able to bring myself to it. Not all that young, yet perhaps, exactly the age where I'd feel uneasy about it. Why at 16, you may wonder - it was this habit of referring to a website back in the days which recommended classics to read, and Lolita happened to be one title in it. Like all the other books I picked up each week for summer camp reading hours, Lolita was one. I remember thinking some years later in hindsight, while reviewing the book and its theme for a course assignment, how there should have been some library restrain on issuing such a book at that age, because it was an unnerving read all the more even at something like 21. Anyway - thought I'd put in the title, for anyone interested. It is without question one of those celebrated titles in the world of literature for lots of reasons. And it sends out no wrong message. Reading it is alarming because of the theme of course, and all the more because of the narrative being from the pedophile's POV. The cold calculation and absolute negation of any counter conscience is bound to shock. So yeh, heads up on that account for prospective readers.
Finally the workshop. Special applause to the team of SJ for including that sampler in the episode, because just having mentioned having such conversations with kids might not have been guiding enough. The example session in my opinion is one of those measures that are simple but go a long way as solutions to big complex seeming issues. One of the inevitable feeling that I couldn't put down all through that session was just, watching those kids, being kids. Their giggles and screams alike. And I was thinking back to the narrative to the victims and how they'd just turn to stone or become reactionless in their moment of being abused - and it struck me, how distinct the difference stood out. The unbelievable extent of what a moment can change in the innocence of childhood... We all have kids in our extended families whom we watch growing up and pass remarks about being too smart or slow. I was thinking of how that 5 year old and her comment about gloves to color hair was indicative of such sharp and retentive and unusual sense of observation - and although we've all once been kids, its funny that with time we tend to forget who not "rule book" oriented the observation skill of a child is. How it tends to pick up on the oddest and most trivial of things from amidst routine affairs. And how irrevocably deep it is hence, to scar them at such age. How much more one magnifies the monsters of a child's imagination, given their lack of knowledge to interpret exactly what is happening, as opposed to say an adult being compromised (again, not that I'm comparing and ranking) but just the extra kind of disadvantage in defense being a child, and the extended unfathomable sort of impact such experiences can run into! If kids can believe in the reality of Santa and superheros, why not the super villains right? And to mark their childhood with manifestation of the existence of real life "bad guys" - the horrific and indelible marks of such abuse that would be left behind...
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Just. Overwhelming. Like I said at the beginning I felt far more hit by this episode, than the first, and that's a reaction at an intuitive level which I cannot explain, counter, or define - but just accept. As I said in the beginning, watching this show is hard. And I have to add that I realized as Sunday dawned on me that I was not looking forward to the next episode already, yet a part of me felt compulsively anticipating until I finally got to watch it through. It occurs to me hence, that even just being confronted by the existence of such heinous situations, in such a candid manner with absolutely nothing withheld to convenience any comfort - troubles me at such a subconsciously deep level, that imagining the victims' state is at some level, truly beyond my conception perhaps. Part of being troubled I recognize is a sign of being confronted with something that I've just learned to be aware of, but not really! And on that note, yet another time, kudos to Aamir and the team for putting together this show 👏
Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2
Mannat Har Khushi Paane Ki
