There is a slight sound from the bedroom, Vaishali’s mother cocks her ear, no sound after that.

‘Uday,’ she calls out, ‘is Vaishali sleeping?’

‘Yes,’ he answers from the bedroom itself, ‘she is.’

Vaishali’s aayee continues the phone conversation and hangs up when the door bell rings.

‘Enough for now about your son’s marriage,’ she tells her mother, ‘you have spoken of nothing else for the past twenty-five minutes, you have not even asked about Vaishali. Now I have to go, we will talk later.’

Vaishali’s aayee answers the door, it is her second brother-in-law, home for lunch as always, and he heads straight for the bedroom to look at Vaishali. Everyone in their house dotes on the three-month-old infant.

Vaishali’s chacha goes towards her bed where she sleeps diaperless, her podgy little legs crooked outwards at the knees. Uday is sitting at the edge of the bed, he gets up and goes back into the kitchen. Vaishali’s chacha bends over to nibble-nudge her on her toes with his mouth. He frowns. He sniffs. He stops mid-stoop and runs his eyes over Vaishali. He straightens up.

‘Did you leave her alone?’ he demands of Vaishali’s aayee.

Vaishali’s aayee gets frightened, she says, ‘Yes, yes, just for a few minutes to talk on the phone. But what is wrong?’

‘You damn women, always talking-talking!’

Vaishali’s chacha bends over her again and softly begins sniffing in a systematic way, in her vagina area. Vaishali’s aayee protests, ‘Chee, what are you doing?’

‘Shut up,’ he tells her, ‘just shut up, you cannot even keep an eye on your own infant! Wait till my brothers come home, then you will understand what you have done.’

Vaishali’s chacha gently sets his dialling finger on Vaishali’s vagina area and moves it. His finger encounters a sticky spot. He rubs the stickiness between his two fingers and then sniffs at it.

‘Take her for a bath,’ he orders Vaishali’s aayee.

‘But I gave her a bath in the morning. She will catch cold.’

‘Just do it.’

Vaishali’s chacha goes to the kitchen and Vaishali’s aayee takes her to the bathroom.

By the time Vaishali is back in bed, re-bathed, powdered, re-diapered, breast-fed, swaddled and content, Vaishali’s chacha has slapped Uday and sacked him.

Vaishali’s aayee gets her slap in the night.

What is Child Sexual Abuse?

Is what happened to Vaishali—even though she does not know it, and hopefully never will—Child Sexual Abuse?

Yes. It is.

A tuition master reprimands his girl-student by touching her—non-accidentally and clearly more than once—on the side of her breasts instead of her arm. Child Sexual Abuse?

Yes. Definitely.

The family doctor shows the child pornographic pictures.

Yes.

A grandfather never shows his penis to his granddaughter or touches her vagina. He makes her sit on his lap and strokes her thigh. Sometimes the granddaughter feels something hard as she sits on his lap and he strokes her. But because they love each other so much, she lets him. Yet, the feeling of discomfort lingers.