The landlords did not want a single woman with a child and said they preferred a ‘family’. What were they then, she thought.

Lalita’s instincts were now prickling, and she knew it. In all of sixteen years, she had never seen this look in her daughter’s eyes.

You line them up and count your losses. Usual suspects. Loss of basic rights when you are born without a dick, loss of blood, loss of love, loss of happiness, loss of a normal life.

Why that is the attacker always gets the benefit of doubt but not the victim? I will not call myself a survivor because I haven’t survived it, yet...

With the anger and shame, that day, Sharmi had seen, in her mother, the face of a woman who had had enough. She had seen resolve in place of forbearance