“They were happy and were doing well. They had a nice house. And because Mother was bold and not afraid of the patriarchs, women in the village found someone to rely on and to listen to their troubles of abusive fathers and alcoholic husbands. She also took on the responsibility of the community forest office and was well respected. Men felt threatened of her. During that time mother had given shelter to a 13 years old boy who came from an impoverished background. Turns out one night, he and his friends raped a 12 years old girl in the forest nearby. When my mother found out, she promptly called the cops and handed him to them. After he was released from jail, he joined the then Maoists guerrillas. Then, the war was ripe. I must have been 11…

I remember that day. I was stuck in a storm in the forest. The trees were falling down and as I ducked and darted towards home, a neighbor didi stopped me. She said, ‘It is bad news. Someone killed your brother.’ I ran home to find no one. As I sat there waiting for my mother to return, I felt happy that no one was going to scold me or beat me over my incomplete homework. No one was going to chase after me asking to study. You see, it was a little girls brain. As the night progressed I started realizing the loss. My brother was the person who taught me to ride a bike. He was the one to instill the value of independence in me from an early age. As I waited for my mother to return, the night felt longer and longer. When finally she came home, I learned that the army was not able to fetch my brother’s body. Apparently, it was this boy that mother had sheltered who had killed him. He had taken revenge with my mother for sending him to jail. He even sent a picture of the dead body. They had pulled out his teeth and his nails and tortured my brother to death.

This incident in my life took a toll on me. It must have changed mother. I was the sensitive one amongst my siblings. It was very difficult for me to process all the trauma. By then, my father had turned out to be useless. He would be away, drinking. And he remained absent throughout my life. My brother was the father figure. I looked up to him and admired him. With this loss, I started falling behind in school and I started finding ways to escape. Sometimes, I felt I would wake up from this bad dream. But this was to continue. The guerrillas started visiting us almost every day. And to save her life, mother had to run away on several occasions. They would kidnap me and my siblings for a few hours just to scare my mom. I remember hiding and running through the fields to the police station. The war did not spare us, children. Eventually, the rebels bombed our house and we have to seek shelter in the police station.”