Hi Kian,

OP here. Since my account was not published, I had felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I would constantly refresh the website after I submitted my experience to see if it was published or not. After multiple months, it just made me relive the trauma and feel extremely disheartened so I stopped searching if my submission had been published. To be honest, I stopped reading Legally India completely unless I searched something and it appeared on the results page. I used to read your website religiously before 😅

Since the last 3 days, reading about a rape triggered memories of this horrifying event and I went through many different accounts of sexual harassment that were reported on your website. I just had a gut feeling to do so. Idk why since we read about many such cases but I had a very strong urge to go through all sexual harassment accounts reported. It makes sense now. I was going through each result and just randomly clicked on the link lower on the search results page and I was kinda shocked but also pleasantly surprised to see you had finally published my account. I realized this was my account as I started reading this. And despite feeling that I was over this trauma, I broke down and started crying.

I totally understand why you took so much time 😅 since journalists have to verify their news. You must receive a flood of emails and messages every single day and I can see why you took the time to publish it. I completely understand why you didn’t publish his name. I just wanted to highlight this to warn other girls who might want to intern or work under him. To warn them of his predatory nature and to advise them to ALWAYS take someone with them if they ever were to go to his office or home-office. Be it your parents, friends, classmates or just go in groups since there’s safety in numbers.

I was thinking of making this public with his and my identity both, all the proofs, receipts, screenshots, witness statements, everything. But I was talked out of this again by a family friend saying she wouldn’t advice women to do that. At that point, I was very attached to her and looked upto her for all kinds of advice and followed her what she said for everything so backed down.

Thank you for your kind thoughts, advice and suggestions. Yes, I have grown to be a more confident person. Mostly on account of the sheer rage I felt after going to therapy and working on myself and understanding that this was not my fault at all. And working on different sexual harassment/assault/abuse/rape cases over the years.

Thank you for publishing this. Seeing my submission up her made me feel supported, better and lighter. 🙏🏻🧿😇🦋🪷

Thank you so much for your kind words. They truly mean a lot 🙏🏻🪷🌸

I have regained most of confidence back but still this incident has really affected my life and the way I behave in relation with almost everyone else around me. It has definitely affected my formal, informal and professional relationships immensely and the constant cloud of fear that hangs in the air whenever I meet someone new.

Looking back even I don’t know how I managed to keep a calm, neutral tone and face when inside I felt like I was going to pass out. I was just listening to my intuition and following whatever my inner voice was telling me to do. Later on, I learnt that Flight or Fight are not just the only Fear Responses. There are actually 4. The remaining being Freeze and Fawn. And these 2 are seen most commonly in women. Many a times women will freeze and will not be able to respond to the sudden shock of sexual violence they encounter since their brain shuts down. The amount of cortisol that floods the body in such situations is very high and dangerous and so the brain will numb the response to preserve the body. Many women are unable to even move an inch. The other response is Fawn, wherein the victim will try to do as the perpetrator says and try not to anger him so that he doesn’t hurt her more. This is also seen and documented in victims of sexual assault and violence. Especially in human trafficking when they’re out in public yet the woman doesn’t ever ask for help since she feels she’ll survive and live if she follows and doesn’t want to invite his wrath and more harm upon herself. This is why many women just go along with whatever is being asked of them in a paralyzed daze.

Well there still was the underlying current amongst my family members of these notions of honour. The community I come from is very orthodox, conservative and violent. Honour Killing is very rampant and common. And in this case where the family knows that it wasn’t their daughter’s fault and since there is no basis for honour killing, since I did not elope with a guy of another caste or someone of the same caste who did not have my family’s approval or whatever, if my family was not supportive, I would’ve been married off at the earliest since I was technically an adult. So I would’ve been married off and not allowed to continue my education. I would be recounted as an example of not letting your daughters study too much or send your daughters to college, lest in another city/state. I would’ve been passed on as an inconvenient burden to my husband and I would be his headache now. Of course, it would’ve been an arranged marriage.

And this is still rampant. What’s more, I heard it myself. A meeting of all the elders in the family, our close friends, respected heads of our community who hold high positions, was called. One elderly man straight up asked my father, “Why not marry her off?” My father was a bit startled and taken aback but put his down and was firm in his stance that she’ll first complete her education before I even think of marriage. She should have a basic degree first so she can support herself later if needed. And though it was unspoken but I knew that I was lucky enough 🧿 to not be married off against my wishes. But we all know how familial pressure is. Especially in large families where 20 different people have an opinion on your life and seek to control it

Hi,

I understand why you’d feel that way. But lucky for me, I have screenshots of chats, my ride that I booked that day, call recordings since at that time I was using an Android which had automatic call record option turned on, call recordings when I called him to say that I was running late and I’d I needed to change the appointment timings and he had said, “Ohh there’s no need blah blah. Come araam se etc etc. Call recording of when I called him from inside my ride asking for directions since the location that the app had picked up was off by quite a few distance and I couldn’t find his house and he guided me to his house. My mum, when I had told her about the interview had told me to ask him if he had any female interns and she had insisted that this be asked since she was not comfortable with letting me intern in a place with only men. And he had said yes and that he had ▮▮▮ daughters and I would need to come to his home office only since he predominantly worked from there and not his chambers in the High Court and that his daughters would be around when I came over for the interview. This was also on record. And when I entered, in the beginning, he mentioned about his daughters and asked me if I had met them in the living room while they were huddled on the sofa and I told him I saw one. And he said the other 2 women were his wife and mother. I had smiled at them out of courtesy and even at his weird, creepy servant at the start when I was blissfully unaware of the horrors about to unfold later. I have a call recording from that when I called my mother and recounted everything, when I called up my Aunty who’s my family friend and recounted everything to uncle and Aunty, call recording of her telling me that they had talked to my father and advising me to leave for my hostel immediately, not wait for ride to arrive and instead flag down any auto on the road, call recordings of people asking me if I had made home safely, if there had been any communication from him, call recordings of my brother cursing him and threatening him with dire consequences if he dared to contact me again, screenshots of him texting me again, me telling him not to contact me again, photos of his house at that day and time, other videos, photos and recordings, my selfies, him coming to my college, my refusal to attend college the day he came again. My attendance record in which that day is marked absent and I never stayed absent for college since I absolutely loved to attend all my lectures. I would sit on the first benches and loved to take notes. I hated skipping that day since I would then have to ask notes from others. All this and more is recorded, saved and backed up across multiple places. This information is available with multiple members of my family and trusted people in multiple different forms so yes, I have ample proof but I was talked out of going public with this information due to notions of shame and honour especially for a girl in our society. Recordings of my consultations with my therapists, psychologists, counselors whom I sought to make sense of this and to stop the panic attacks I had immediately afterwards. My anxiety was at an all time high at that time, me confining in my trusted family members and friends, diary entries, witness statements from the people I talked to about this, call recordings with even the trustworthy goons my brother had talked to to protect me and destroy him if he ever tried to get close to me again and much much more.

So yes, I have more than enough proof to prove it was him. Moreover, I’d openly challenge this fucktard to go through Narco analysis and lie detector tests if he dared

Hello,

OP here. Thank you for your concern and kind words 🙏🏻🪷🌸 Yes, I’m in a much better place right now.

I completely agree. This is why it’s so important to be street smart. Since I was a kid, I was a bookworm. I loved to study, followed whatever my teachers said religiously and toed the line completely. Whatever ideals and ethics lessons we were taught at school, I took them quite literally. Even my CLAT coaching teacher called me, “too idealistic”. I genuinely believed that, “Truth alone triumphs”, “Good always wins over evil” and other such stuff you learn from childhood, in the stories you’re taught with a moral lesson, in the ethics and morals classes at school as well as college.

At law school, I would readily buy into the lofty ideals written into our constitution, judgements, BCI rules and I would feel so good about how our Judiciary held itself to such impeccable standards. How despite our legislature and executive being too far gone, our Judiciary was still standing as the last beacon of hope. Especially when you’re fed all such unicorns and rainbows and more by your law school teachers who paint a very rosy picture when you’re a first year and they’re trying to retain you so that you don’t change colleges. (I got to know this later from a senior who stayed in my hostel). And when you read books on legendary judges and lawyers, they’re described as other-worldly and almost divine by their colleagues.

Plus, I was the quintessential teacher’s pet in school. I used to top my exams, carry odd errands around the school for my teachers, participate in whatever competition and workshop they asked me to when they didn’t have any other student takers since they had a quota to complete for student participation and burn myself out just to please them. I remember how deeply ingrained and imprinted were the ideals they’d taught us since kindergarten. “Guru-Shishya Parampara”, “Gurur Brahma Gurur Vishnu, Gurur Devo Maheshwara”, “How the stature and place of a teacher is even above your parents and just below God”. I still remember the poster on the corridor where my 8th std classroom was. It described the meaning of “Guru: Gu + Ru = One Who Removes Darkness”. A common complaint my mum had throughout my schooling years was, whatever her teachers tell her, she takes it literally as if it’s set in stone. She’ll run around at the last minute, at midnight, if her teacher tells her to participate in something at the last minute. My mum finally got fed up of my 7th std class teacher making me do her errands around the school, checking her papers and books, and told her off in the next PTA meeting and asked her to stop treating me as her personal assistant and let me study since she would tell me to give a book to another teacher at the start of class and by the time I came back, having walked across the school campus and back half the class was over and I would miss the concepts taught. At that point I didn’t even go to tuitions since our principal told us not to and I took it literally. My mum would scold me for that and complained about my insane teacher appeasement behaviour to my Masi.

My masi used to say that teachers and all are limited to inside the school. A once school gets over and the bell rings, they’re just normal people and one should treat them as such. No need to show so much reverence towards them. I would bend down to touch the feet of whichever teacher I bumped into outside school since we were taught that in school. That would be my highlight for the week and I would tell my friends I bumped into so and so today.

This incident really burst a bubble and I realized that though the proverbs and shlokas about teachers are on point, they don’t apply to all. Just because someone mugs up some concepts about a subject does not make them a Guru and does not elevate them to the stature this word carried. And so they should not be held to the same sense of awestruck fascination and devotion I so naively and tbh, stupidly harboured. At that point, I was straight out of my school which was very strict in upholding standards of behavioural conduct, dress code, academic excellence etc. so I kept all my college teachers as well on the same pedestal we were taught at school.

Moreover, one should keep an eye for all the red flags in the behaviour of the perpetrator. I could not register them on account of the rose colored glasses I had on at that time. After our guest lecture was over, some students went over to discuss their doubts and engage in discussions, I was one of them. You know the lists of advocates students can intern under that the college circulates? His name was on it. Our teacher had asked him to explain a couple of concepts which she would not be covering and had asked everyone to attend compulsorily as those topics would not be repeated in class later. I thought to myself that was a great opportunity. I could discuss my internship prospects with him at college itself, instead of having to go to his office alone. A week prior to the guest lecture, I didn’t even know someone like him existed on the planet.

Anyways, when my turn came I asked, “Sir are you taking any interns? Your name is on the list our college gave us, of the advocates we can intern under.” He told me to walk with him as he had to meet the dean. Now our classroom was on the first floor. The dean’s office was at the end of the corridor on the ground floor. While walking he asked if I understood the concept our group had doubts in and asked me a couple of questions regarding it. They all had stayed back in class since their doubts had been solved. Since I was the only one remaining, I walked with him to the dean’s office. Since the dean was preoccupied, he was requested to wait. I stood behind clutching my notebook. The teacher who asked us to wait asked him to please sit and wait for a few minutes. There was a bench next to our dean’s office with it’s back to the wall at the end of the corridor. He sat down and motioned me to sit next to him. I sat to his right after leaving some space in between. I started to discuss the internship again and asked him if he had any vacancies. He told me to call him and fix an appointment at his office to discuss it since he had to meet our dean right now. I said okay, and asked him his office address, opening my notebook with my pen ready to jotted in down.

He said I’ll give you my card and started to take it out of his pocket. After he took it out of his pocket, he folded his arms and slipped his left hand under his right arm and shook his card that was wedged in the fingers of his left hand, as a signal for me to take it. I still remember how odd it looked and how perplexed I felt. Why was he slipping his card like he was handing over some contraband? (This was the same posture he would enact later) Anyways, so while feeling utterly confused and weirded out, I took the card and tried to shake off this feeling. After I took the card, he told me to keep it in my notebook, lest I lose it. I had it in my hand. So I kept it in my notebook (I later realized he was asking me to hide it). After I do that I look up and see our moot court teacher walking towards us in the corridor with her eyes widened. Like she had caught him dealing contraband or something. And after seeing her, he immediately stiffened, straightened up and stood to greet her. He looked very flustered like he had been caught in the act of doing something wrong. She faked a laugh and said the dean was ready to meet him. And that made me even more confused. Later, I rationalized it to myself that maybe this was to not let out the news of him taking interns out or else he would be swamped with applications and I might never get a chance since our entire class and our seniors as well, would apply. Looking back, I realized how absolutely dumb my excuse for his extremely weird behaviour was and maybe the reason why my moot court teacher looked so shocked was perhaps he had had complaints made against him prior? Since students at our college has been interning under him and this was the same list that had been circulated to our seniors as well.

That was the first red flag. The second one was during the interview process. As soon as I sat down, he told me the question our college teachers had told us to expect and prepare answers for, in advance as it would be asked for sure. “So tell me about yourself”. I started repeating the answer I had prepared: academic history, strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, reasons for doing the internship etc. When I mentioned that I loved to read and was a voracious reader, he stopped me and asked me names of some of the books I had read. I started saying, “To Kill a Mockingjay”… and he stopped me once again, said he was impressed and asked if I read non fiction as well. I said yes and started listing down the books I had read. He paused me to ask me if I was into history and I said yes. I was a major history buff and when asked what history books I had read, I started off my list with Rajtarangini by Kalhana since that was the latest I had read and the most I remembered so if he asked me any questions related to it, I’d be able to answer them relatively better than the books I had read earlier. At that he interrupted me and looked quite surprised and said that I didn’t expect a first year student to have had read it. I said my social studies teacher had suggested it in the end of 10th std. He said, “Wow, that’s very smart”. With an emphasis on “smart”. He said I reminded him of his elder daughter who was a vociferous reader and read a lot as well. He then got up and pulled out Rajtarangini from his shelves behind his desk and showed it to me. And said that as his intern, I would have access to his collection of books at all times and could ask to read it anytime. I remember feeling so happy I had passed the interview and had been selected. He then remarked that I had a long name and if he could call me by my pet name. He guessed my pet name out loud with a questioning tone at the end. I immediately blurted, “This is exactly what my papa calls me! And some other family members too! My mum calls me by a different name though.” (Like suppose someone’s called Deepika, her pet name would be Deepu, if someone’s called Anushka, her pet name would be Nushkie). I remember thinking of how I had found a father figure in the new senior advocate I was going to intern under since he told me I reminded him of his DAUGHTER. I genuinely thought that him guessing the same nickname my father called me by was also a sign that he thought of me as his daughter. That lowered my guard even more since a girl feels the safest in presence of her parents and here was someone who was portraying himself as my father figure. After all who would suspect someone who was being so nice and telling me I reminded him of his daughter? Looking back, I beat myself up over how unbelievably naive and stupid I was to be so trusting. But then reconciled in light of the environment I had grown up in where I had no reason to be suspicious of someone like him who was a teacher and thus, by extension, automatically to be trusted. And how I was barely an adult at that time

Later on I realized how what he said was inappropriate. This was the second red flag. In my latter internships and work experience, never did ANY of my seniors, forget the advocates I was working under, ever ask me if they could call me by a shortened version of my name, forget a pet name. It is then I realized how essential it is to have street smarts. It’s much better to be a streetwise person who scores average and is able to detect danger and stay safe than to be a book smart bookworm who tops their exams but becomes an easy target due to their naïveté. It’s so important to teach your kids to be sharp, astute, and street savvy first. Marks can always be improved later

Advocate [...] [...] [...] from [...] High Court. I will be honest and straight to the point. He came to my college to deliver a lecture on [...] law. He told us co-wrote [...]'s [...] law book. I went to discuss my internship with him. My alarm bells should have gone off when he asked me to close the door as the AC was on but since it was his office and the AC was on, I just assumed it was logical and normal. Plus, he has his office in his home. In the next room, in the living room which is at a little elevation, like, you need to walk down the stairs to reach the office but it's not completely the basement, just on a lower plane. The living room looks into the office. So, when I came at the time that I had taken by appointment, I saw his mom, his daughter who went studied law in [...] University and his wife sitting together in the living room and watching TV. I felt a sense of security as there were 3 women there. I went in and after the discussion was over, he proceeded to show me the books on his bookcase, as I had mentioned that I read a lot and would be diligent in reading up on the cases in the course of my internship. He then proceeded to touch me under my shoulder, next to my breast, on my rib cage bone under the pretext of showing me around. I removed his hand and couldn't believe what was happen. It is important to note that I was in my first year. I had been with my parents all my life and was extremely naive. I wasn't even allowed to keep a smartphone till I got into college. I had the dabba phone as for my 10th, 11th and 12th. I was living in the hostel, away from my parents for the first time. And I had made the appointment during office hours. Anyways, I froze in shock. I recalled the lesson we had in 3rd standard about "Good Touch, Bad Touch" but I had no idea if what had happened was normally accepted in society or not. (In a confused state, I later asked my college friend if the ay he touched me was bad or not. I literally demonstrated what happened but I didn't say it happened to me. I said it happened to my hostel friend. She looked at me as if I had gone mad and shouted at me that "Yes! Of course! How can you not know that?! Who did that?" I repeated my practised lines that it didn't happen to me but she doesn't believe it, to this day). That bastard kept his expressions perfectly normal as if it was understood that I had come for sexual favours or something. I feel rage, anger and hopelessness as I write this. I still remember how I was feeling that day. I was so confused and he kept on touching me there. Being the frightened, frozen, confused idiot I was, i simply didn't know how to react. Plus, his home was on [...] highway. Inside a colony. It was quite silent and my mind was swirling. During all this time, he kept on conversing as if everything was perfectly normal. He talked about how he came from a family of lawyers. His dad was a lawyer, as was his grandfather. And in the middle of all this, he talked about HIS DAUGHTERS! Can you imagine what a lowly creep he is?! He talked about how his daughter was in [...]. She studied in [...]. She got in due to his reference etc. Then he proceeded to tell me a list of Must-Read books. I opened my book that I had marked for "Internship". It was a new Classmate book and like a small, school child I had marked everything properly. I can't believe how naive, innocent and even worse, sincere I was about all this. I left the first page and started writing the list of books from the second page as we all do in a fair copy. When I sat down, on the pretext of checking the spelling (Seriously?!), he came and sat next to me. He pretended I had made a mistake and on the pretext of pointing that out he reached towards my copy and started touching me near my vagina. You know where the small pockets are in womens' jeans? There. By this time, I was thoroughly scared and frozen. i kept looking at the door but could not move. I kept removing his hand, shuffling in my seat, trying to be polite. I had literally no guts to stand up for myself. I was scared that he might pin me down and rape me if I made a move for the door. I literally thought this was it. I was going to get raped today. And in the closed office surrounded by silence, which, by the way, did not have glass walls as in other corporate cubicles, it was like a room, I will be molested and assaulted and if I made a move, I would be killed. So, I kept pushing his hand away , either from my pelvic-area, near to my vagina, or my the area next to my bra cup. This "His touching Me and Me trying to push it away" kept happening for a good 15 minutes. 15 MINUTES.(It seems surreal but the flight or freeze option when presented with a threat is very real. I have always thought of myself as a brave girl, someone who has been called strong an courageous and I was so ashamed of myself for not acting in that way. In a way, I still am. I still blame myself for not being better prepared at "duniyadaari", not having strong reflexes etc. ) I was so numb and by this time, I was working on autopilot. the voice inside my head told me to make a move, but it was getting engulfed by fear and foreboding. I almost felt that I would faint due to the anxiety and paranoia I had. Probably due to my body being in a state of active alert and responding by increasing cortisol and adrenaline. Just at that time, my mother called. I had told her about this interview. I had even shared the name of the Ola/Jugnoo Rickshaw Rider I was in as [...] Highway is a very far place. I had given her a time of 1 hour. That I would call her immediately when I went on the road to book another rickshaw. My mother later told me that she had a feeling of unease and she felt that she needed to call me. I had told everyone to not disturb me but she still did. i guess it was her mother's intuition. And as soon as I heard the phone ring, it was like the immobility paralysis/spell of numbness broke and I regained my ability to act and not be resigned to fate. I got the pretext of walking up and walking away without raising suspicion. I was so paranoid that I if I acted suddenly or in a manner that clearly showed how threatened I felt and how I badly I wanted to run away, he would pounce on me. I was so so relieved to hear her voice. She talked to me and I saw him straighten up from the corner of my eye. I just made up stuff on the phone that "Haan, OMG what happened? I'll be there. Okay, No Problem, I'm just leaving". I didn't cut the phone. I couldn't tell her to "Don't cut the phone" so I just kept the phone on. I just made some polite courtesy stuff "Thank you Sir but I will have to leave because ______ happened." He was like, "Ohh, so early? Okay, No problem. You can go". He said "YOU CAN GO" I was so shocked with fear when I heard that. My mother literally saved my life today. Then he said, "But first let us take a selfie before you go". And I didn't want to record my interaction with him. But then I thought what if he has a camera here and was recording everything? So, he took out his phone and took a selfie with me. I forced myself to smile when I was having heart angina. (I was first diagnosed in 11th when I almost fainted due to anxiety in the September Semester exams. My doctor said it's anxiety) I just wanted everything to get over and wanted to get out of that cursed house and society as soon as possible. I still remember his facial expressions and his intimidating and scary body language. He clicked a stupid selfie and then went for another as he felt it was not good. I was so scared I got another clicked and picked my book, my pen, my bag and went straight to the door. Opened it and didn't look up. While going out, I could see that his another daughter had come and now there were 4 women in the living room. It made me sick and disgusted that he did all this when they: his daughters, his mother, his wife were in the next room. I didn't trust them to complain to them. I thought they perhaps knew of his nature and were silently accepting and complicit of his predatorial nature. Maybe his daughters had gone through the same or maybe they might literally pin me down and kill me if I said anything. I still remember my knees shaking as I slipped into my loafers. I still remember how it was not properly fitted around the soles of my feet but I stumbled out. My heart was pounding and I wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. I still remember my shaking hands opening the door. I wasn't able to pull it properly as I felt so weak and numb. I saw a servant of his house and I walked faster after seeing him. I didn't slow down until I was out of the society/colony as I was scared if anything happened to me, in that silent society, where I could just see houses and couldn't see anybody out strolling, NOBODY would come help me. I didn't even adjust the soles of my loafers/ballet flats till I had walked out on the road/for a good 10 minutes. Only then did I stop to adjust the soles of my shoes and called up my mom. I explained to her what all had happened and cried a lot. My mom cried and was furious. She told me to tell dad. I couldn't bear the shame to tell my dad. In a way, I felt I had dishonoured HIM and brought him shame due to my weakness. If I was stronger and smarter, I would have understood everything and got the f out immediately. Also, my dad is in a very prominent position so I felt the public shame and disgrace would be unbearable. I am from a conservative family and community so that made me numb with what I perceived as the shame of my actions. I then called my brother who couldn't pick up. Then I called our family friends- an uncle -aunty I am very close to and who, have treated me like their own daughter. I didn't want to call any other family members apart from my immediate family members as I didn't want to dishonour my family. What if the person I told this let it slip my mistake? There would be a huge issue created. Me going out to another state- [...] to study, live in a hostel was a big deal in itself. Anyways, this elderly couple who have thought of me like their own daughter hold prominent government positions. They immediately went to my father's office and explained to him what happened. They even explained why I wasn't able to tell him directly. My father was very sad that this happened to his daughter. My father is loved, respected and admired by everyone. Everyone knows his character and can attest to the fact that he has never even laid eyes on another woman, mistreated even a daily wage labourer, forget about sexually assaulting a woman. He calls all servants by "aap". I have even heard my housemaids say this that "Sahib's home is one of the safest places we work at. He doesn't even enter the room where we work. Unlike XYZ where he looks at us creepily" I heard them on my way to the kitchen when they were all making pickles. They were conversing in Hindi. I just mentioned this incident to highlight just how conservative we are. At my home, "Purdah" is also followed. Anyways, being brought up in this environment, I was shocked at what happened. I had heard and read about sexual assault but hadn't even KNOWN anybody who went through it. I was living a very sheltered life, shielded from the realities of the world. I never had a boyfriend. Anyways, my brother came to know about this and all hell broke loose. I am quite young as compared to him. He's like an ACP. I can't divulge his real position. So he asked me for his contact details. I was frightened and didn't want to cause a scandal so I refused to give it to him. By this time, I was back at the hostel. I remember sitting on the bed hearing him say he would anyways find it in seconds. I remember putting [...] [...]'s card on my bed and clicking a picture and sending it to my brother. He didn't know that my father and brother and extended members in my father's as well as mother's family are in very prominent positions in the government, police and armed forces or else he wouldn't have dared do something like this. This is not something that I am proud of because it highlights the pathetic state of affairs in our country where "Might is Right" but this is what happens. My brother then talked to him. He wouldn't tell me what he told but a fewer years later he told me that he had threatened him with dire consequences (his life) and talked about sending some goons to rough him up. Before that, I had messaged on [...] [...]'s number only for confirming the appointment and confirming the address. For 2 days, there was silence. then on the 3rd day, despite my brother threatening him with dire consequences he messaged me. I asked him to never contact me again and blocked his number. Now, I am lucky that I was born in a family that had the money, power, the right caste and religion but I shudder to think about what would have happened if my mother hadn't called at the right time. And if I was a girl who did not have the privilege that I do, there would be no consequences for this disgusting, vile bastard. Atleast I know that if, God Forbid, something had happened to me, my brother would have ordered his killing. This incident has been horrible for my mental health. I have become extremely paranoid. I put alarms on my phone whenever I go out. I share the name, photo, number of the rickshaw if I take any. I don't take cabs because I feel a rickshaw is safer as I can jump out one. I have stopped even trying to get an internship under a male advocate unless he knows my family personally. I only intern under female advocates. I only go out in groups with my female friends or with my family. I don't stay out after sunset. I try to look as inconspicuous as possible. It is important to note that my hair was plaited in a braid, I was fearing full formal pants and a full length, 3/4 sleeved opaque kurti along with a scarf when I went to meet that fucking pig. It was afternoon as I had gone directly from college. And when I came back, the sun was up in the sky. I am still shaken by that incident and don't go for internships outside my hometown or with people I don't know. My anxiety has worsened and I have been told to go for therapy. For many years, after that incident, I kept following up on rape and murder cases and sexual assault cases so that I never let my guard down. So that I would always be alert. It was horrible and it made me relive all those frightening memories but I felt it was for my own good as I was always on guard when I read them. It however made my anxiety, paranoia worse and one psychiatrist diagnosed me with clinical depression. I haven't attended a single fresher's or farewell party after that incident. In one of the sessions with my psychiatrist, i finally came to terms with the fact that I wasn't wrong, this wretched weasel predator was the one who was wrong. I remember I was asked to introduce the guest speakers who came for seminars and extra classes or other functions as my communication was good. I was told to prepare an introduction for someone. When I asked and found that this bastard was coming back, I excused myself from the hosting and stayed absent that day as I did not want to accidentally be seen by him. My grandparents came to know about this and my suspicions came true. They felt that I had dishonored our glorious family name and there was no need for me to go to college. My kakas and buaas would give me the side eye. So, I had to live in my own home as if I was walking on eggshells. I had to double down on my good behaviour, punctuality, discipline, fully covering myself at all times, my capris got replaced with full length salwar suits when I was at home, I couldn't stand in my own balcony if someone started staring as I would be the one who would be blamed. I had to attend all kirtans, bhajans ceremonies at our house and couldn't talk to my neighbourhood boys who I had grown up with. Not that I am not religious, it's just that my freedom has been constrained to an unbelievable extent. I had to go home on the first day of my holidays itself. And after this incident, I was removed from the hostel and was made to live with a distant aunt who lived in the same city. I don't think I will be even allowed to practise in a city of my choice, let alone a metro. It makes me so mad that these bastards, perverts and beasts get away with anything and everything while the victims are policed and shamed. They lose their lives, their health, their strength, their respect in the eyes of others, their dreams, their peace of mind and much more while these demons' lives are not affected in the slightest. I hope he goes to hell and dies a thousand deaths everyday. I hope he too goes through sexual assault and goes through the same fear paralysis I went through and dies from the ensuing heart attack. (No, I don't have it in me to not wish him that. I am not that forgiving) I hope he is publicly shamed and stoned to death. Monsters like these have made lives of countless women hell. Abuse of Power is real and commonplace. There is nothing worse than preying on young, vulnerable girls. May he die a slow, painful death and rot in hell for eternity.