Children of commercial sex workers are also attempting defence, albeit with tragic twists. Perveen is the fifteen-year-old daughter of a Bhopal prostitute. She was a group dancer for public functions and had to deal with several attempts of sexual abuse. Her mother stopped her dancing and set her up as a house-maid where she is being regularly sexually abused by her employer, his wife ignores Perveen when she tries to talk about what the man-of-the-house is doing to her. Perveen has now decided to go back to dancing, even if it incurs her mother’s wrath. ‘If I have to face such things in both places, I might as well do what I enjoy, my dancing,’ she says.

And this, too, can happen.

A twelve-year-old Chennai boy is initiated into sexual activity by a twenty-one-year old married woman, his neighbour. Their affair lasts for two years, even through the first few months of her pregnancy. The woman has no idea whose child it is, the boy-child’s or her husband’s, but there is no assumption other than the obvious in their neighbourhood. The woman gives birth to a girl and does not resume the affair. The boy tries, she puts him off, first citing her post-pregnancy status and then her daughter as reasons.

The boy is now sixteen, the little girl two.

The boy rapes the little girl in revenge.

Exit Cycle

The eight-year-old boy from Calcutta who develops a speech defect is also likely to display several other signs of short-term and, then, long-term effects of Child Sexual Abuse; as he grows, he is also likely to stay trapped in the survivor’s cycle (see chapter ‘The aftermath’).

Dimple’s mother, reprehensible though she may sound, is also in the survivor’s cycle; and here she is likely to stay. She derives what she sees as her power from playing the victim’s role while perpetuating emotional abuse in her family. A small thought here: why does Dimple’s mother sound so reprehensible? Because she is a woman, a mother? Take away the theatrics of Dimple’s mother—don’t the fathers of other children behave similarly and with far less reason?

The truth is that Dimple’s mother needs real help, not medicine, just a good psychiatrist; make that a very good psychiatrist because Dimple’s mother happens to be an intelligent woman, not blazingly intelligent but above average enough for her mind to need another which can match hers. The truth is also this: Dimple’s mother will shun all help from those who truly care for her; all that friends can do is draw her attention to the problem and then not feel depressed when she intellectualizes the entire situation for them or simply cuts them off.

Mumbaii psychotherapist Dr Rani Raote, who also counsels adults who have been sexually abused in childhood, says, ‘This does happen; women who have survived in dysfunctional relationships tend to react negatively when they enter a functional one. They may even try and spoil it for themselves with some kind of psychobabble. Such cases can take an even longer time to heal, because you can only heal if you really want to heal.’