Every morning the newspaper comes, it seems like there will never be a day when heart melting stories of/about rape victims do not appear. If it’s not in the newspapers it on the TV, internet or they travel by word of mouth. It’s all so horrendous that sometimes it all seems near to fiction but it’s “true”. Reality is stranger than fiction, more ruthless than our imagination can fathom. Often we are left to wonder why sadly our quest for answer ends in the question itself.

I had never before ‘seen’ or talked to a rape victim. I had lots of doubts, questions, and fear I can’t exactly describe. It seems a futile preparation currently — after all she was only a small eight-year old girl. After many hours of avoidance she barged into my workplace space.

“Pretty sister” she exclaimed holding my hand. After that moment she just wouldn’t leave my side until the evening when she had to go to her parental home for a court hearing.  She kept telling everyone around that she would come back after the court hearing to stay here with us because she simply loves it here.

She entertained all in the office by her impromptu song and dance routine interrupted by her sudden peals of laughter and questions, why is this box (computer) black? How can you call when your phone has no numbers? First, we were patient in giving our ‘made-up’ answers but, what, where, how and why were so many we ultimately had no option but to order her in a strict voice to sit in a corner with a finger on her lips. Our strict avatar was not enough and she kept up her funny antics filling every nook and corner of our office with laughter. The pain she had been through at such a young age had taught her to sense real fear.

She sat right next to me sometimes combing my hair with her little fingers or telling me not to drink too much coffee and at times giving me wisdom filled advice which kept reminding me of the childhood that was snatched.

She stayed with us for four hours and left, leaving us to our “normalcy”. For a day we were touched and saw the truth was “pretty” not scary.  For happiness does not exist only in the absence of problems but in the ability to deal with them. Because it’s not what the world takes away that counts; it’s what you do with what you have left.