“Yes, that too. The man was drunk. I am thankful Singapore is safe. If I were in India, that man would probably have dragged me into the bushes and raped me!”

“No, no, no…forget thankful. Thankful articles that sing praises of blessings gather no views. Stay with angry. Stay with feeling vulnerable, fearing rape. That is an angle we can work with.”

Hashwini glared at Euu Ki, not quite getting his drift, but the latter ignored her and took control of the keypad to conduct a Google search for top keywords for blog names. He spent a few minutes browsing through some of the lists churned out by the search engine. At one point, he clicked his tongue with satisfaction and tapped on the screen. “This is the word we need.”

Hashwini leant in for a closer look. The word was “confession”.

“We can go with…‘Confessions of a Rape Victim’,” Euu Ki announced dramatically, his eyes bright.

“Are you crazy? I have never been raped,” Hashwini protested.

Euu Ki glared at her. “Use your imagination. It could have happened, a long time ago, just that you never wanted to talk about it. But you cannot deny it has changed you fundamentally. You are distrustful of men and detest the system they have built to suppress you. You constantly feel vulnerable, disadvantaged, preyed upon. That is why you started this new blog. You need to clamour for justice. The nasty experience with the Bangla worker has brought back horrible memories of what happened to you when you were a teenager... Oh my God! That’s it! ‘Confessions of a Teenage Rape Victim’.”

“I was never a rape victim,” Hashwini reiterated in exasperation.

“But there are teenage rape victims in society. They are in pain but they don’t have a voice. You can be their voice. That would be your blog persona—you speak for the victimised, the suppressed, the ignored. You are a voice for justice.”

Hashwini held her tongue. She was beginning to see the picture Euu Ki was painting. For her blog to reach out to a wider audience, she had to go beyond her personal, quotidian experiences. Her articles had to convey a theme that resonated with her ten thousand potential readers. Already she could feel the tingle of excitement in her toes.

“I am going to save these lists of keywords in a folder called ‘rape’. You need to pepper your articles with them. These are the keywords that the search engines will pick up on. Do it correctly and you will be ranked high on searches.” Euu Ki explained. “In the meantime, bring me a glass of water.”

“I have juice. You want juice?”

Euu Ki gave her a strange look. “Just water.”

When Hashwini came back with a glass of tap water, Euu Ki stood up, received the glass and splashed the contents on her chest.

“What the fuck are you doing?”