I still remember the first time I was touched without my consent, it started when I was in KG. It was a school attendant who thought it fine to take a little girl behind the bathroom door and feel her up. That was the day I stopped breathing... I was too young to understand the thing happening to me was wrong and degrees of molestation continued, from two soldiers, from a neighbour's servant, another neighbour's daughter, etc.
What provocative clothing was I wearing that more than five people in a few couple of years thought I was easy access for their perversions? It wasn't my parents’ fault. As a child, we stayed in an Army protected area, everyone tended to trust the people around.
As I grew older, I felt suspicious of certain people's intentions and tended to be overprotective of my elder sisters who was 11 years older than me.
The year I decided to breathe again and finally understand what was happening to me was when I was nine. Another army encampment and another set of quarters to live in, a neighbour's daughter became good friends and the family had a sahayak (soldier assigned to the officer) who decided I was an easy target.
He tricked me into thinking my friend was home and tried to rape me. It was a horrible ordeal and I have never felt that dirty for something not of my fault than that evening years ago.
I didn't say anything until he caught hold of me the next day and grabbed my developing breasts. It was like I was pumped with oxygen, I finally screamed and asked for help. He was thrown out of the army is what I heard.
My family was in denial and I clamped up my feelings and let the dark horrors eat me for years, but still I rose and became a strong woman. Until one day, I finally managed to talk about everything that happened to a live audience, my boyfriend (now husband) and my family.
I'm almost 30 now, and I wonder how, as a 5-year-old, I went through all that suffering and for so many years?
I grew up, but what about the eight-year-old from Kathua who didn't even get a chance to grow and heal from her horrors?
(Urvashi Patole is the founder of The Bikerni, India's first and largest all-women motorcycle association.)
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