This takes me to an incident which keeps giving me goose
bumps even after 10 years.
I remember playing on the terrace with my sister on a sunny
winter day. A friend of mine came upstairs in a hurry as if someone has stolen
his new pencil box and whispered something into my ear which I did not
understand. “Jules has been raked” were his words. Jules was 5 year old, a
daughter of a worker in our locality. She was one of the most beautiful girls I
have ever seen. Golden locks, deep brown eyes, rosy complexion and everything
else you would never imagine on a poor worker’s child. After that day, I never
saw her again.
I tried asking my mom about her but my inquisitiveness was
always put to rest. A 10 year old will never be interested in what “being raked”
means. So I let it pass as easily as it came to me.
Jules was raped by a man who was 27 years old. Her parents
left the place after filing the police complaint and watching the bastard being
freed in just a week of judicial custody. On what grounds you want to ask? I will
tell you...The man was proved to be mentally retarded.
A five year old was raped, of her childhood, her innocence,
her free spirit...
I was ten and my mind was fickle. But why did the world
around me behave like 10 years old?
Why did not my parents do something?
Why was the man easily forgiven by the court and by the society
when the poor girl had to be taken away by her family?
Why?
Tell me if you know the answer.
