Don't just feel sorry, learn the joy of giving

Sexual harassment at workplace ...

I was all excited for my new job. I had been trying for this IT Giant for a long time. So, obviously when I got the job I was over the moon. It was my first day in the office. I had an amazing time. I hailed from a small city, did my graduation from Delhi University. This was my first job ever. My first day was very calm, I felt like a stranger but I was hopeful of getting myself acquainted with the work culture of the organization at the earliest.

Though there was stiff competition but people were really warm and I quickly gelled in with the organization. I made some good friends and some enemies too owing to the stiff competition. Gradually, I too got engrossed with the competitive spirit of the organization and started working really hard. I came from a small city and wanted to achieve success and did not want to leave any stone unturned in doing that.

Slowly, I got promotion shortly and couldn’t have been happier. Most of the times, I would work late hours at night with very few people in the office. There was a friend of mine, Amit, who did not encourage me staying so late in the office and working late alone. But I would often tell him that I need to work hard to achieve my aim. Many a times, my boss, Rohit, would drop me back home. I would be hesitant initially but then slowly I agreed and 2-3 times he dropped me back home. He would mostly compliment me on the efforts that I had been putting in and that he appreciates my work and that if I keep working like this, success is not far. I was happy that my efforts were getting noticed.

Lately I had been working on this very crucial project. I would spend long hours working on it in the office and wanted it to be a major success. One of those busy days, Rohit again offered to drop me back home. Since, I had gone with him earlier so I was comfortable especially because the office cab had left and the next one wasn’t available before 2 hours. On the way back home, Rohit complimented me that he thinks that I am really good looking and wanted to say it for a long time and that he would want to take him out for dinner on the weekend. I was hesitant because this was not expected and besides Rohit was married! I did not know how to say no..so I was silent because I couldn’t think of a better thing to do. I was afraid if I rejected him, he might take the project away from me. Reading my silence, he uttered-‘Come on! It’s just dinner. I will treat you good. And besides everyone is working hard. You should do something extra to keep your professional graph going!’

It was 3 days until the weekend when I was supposed to be going out with Rohit. All 3 days, he would pass by my seat and make some sexually inappropriate remarks. I did not know what to do, whom to approach. I was just 6 months old in the organization whereas Rohit had been there for 6 long years. Who would believe me? What if I lose my job? And what if he makes my life miserable even if nothing happens?

The dinner day came and Rohit took me to a lavish 5 star hotel for the dinner. All throughout the meal, he kept talking about how much he had always wanted me. I kept silent all the while managing only a few necessary words to keep the conversation going. At the end of the date, Rohit offered to drop me. I couldn’t say no. I was scared already. While on the way, he stopped the car at a deserted place and tried to feel me up and get cosy. I objected to it. He did not stop. I somehow managed to get out of the car and run away. I took lift way back. All in sobs, I did not know what to do. I kept thinking that why had I not stopped him earlier only? Why did I go out with him if I was not getting the right vibes from him? Why on earth did I not tell anyone or report him to the HR. A bigger question lay ahead of me..that what will I do now? How will I face him? And what if he continues the same behavior even now or what if he tries to make my life at work difficult?

With all the questions in my head, I took a leave from the office the next day to compose myself. I was so scared that I did not tell anyone.

However, when I got back to the office, Rohit had turned into a monster. Within a month, he had tried every way to bring public humiliation to me. More so, I also ended losing the project that I had been working on for so hard.

My life was becoming hell. I would work silently during the day, hear Rohit shout at me and at night cry myself to sleep. My friend Amit asked me that what was wrong with me thrice but I couldn’t muster the guts to tell him. I, finally one day opened up to Amit and told him what had happened. To my surprise, Amit told me something that I had not expected. He told me that the girl before me had left the company all of a sudden and since Amit was a good friend of hers too, he had tried to know it from her, who had told him after 3 months of quitting that Rohit had tried to sexually harass her. Amit asked me to complain with the HR anhttp://www.merakyahoga.com/story/story_preview/41

Sexually abused by Relative ...

I don’t know how old I was when it started. I must have been two or three – just a child. A talkative little girl who loved to laugh and sing around the house. For him, I was just one of his many victims. He always had his eyes on me and “the incidents,” as I refer to them now, became routine. So routine, that I thought it was normal.

He touched me every opportunity he had. He didn’t care the time of day or who was home, all he needed was a five-minute window and he took advantage. I always felt dirty after. I knew what he was doing was wrong but he always looked me in my eyes and told me never to tell. I kept his secret for nearly ten years.

Then one day, a few months after my 9th birthday, I finally told. He denied it, of course. My family believed me but we never spoke about it again. We continued on with Sunday dinners and big family functions as if nothing ever happened. It was like they locked it up in the box of “things that never happened.” And I, like everyone else, threw away the key and believed that lie.

Now, in my mid-twenties, I struggle with those painful memories. I never bring it up because I know he’s loved — a father, a husband, an uncle, a grandfather. The idea of tainting his reputation is just too much for me to bear. So, I’ve been carrying that burden for a long time…until now.

I’m at a crossroads in my life. I have unanswered questions and I desperately want to understand how my childhood has affected my adulthood. What happened in that house for all those years was a violation of my innocent mind, body and spirit. How do I move on? How do I erase the painful memories that constantly come back to haunt me? Things that I thought I never knew, suppressed so far back in my memory, are easily triggered by smells, TV theme songs from the ’90s and even patterns on fabric.

 “For a person who has been sexually abused, if the message they’ve always heard is ‘what happens in our house, stays in our house’ and we don’t talk about these things, then we are telling our kids to internalize what may have happened to them.”

I am sure there are millions of kids like that. I just hope that their families are more supportive if a kid brings up an issue like this. It is altogether a mental torture for kids while going through it and when the parents try to push the issue under the carpet, the kids undergo a severe trauma all the more.