AGONY &
MENTAL TORTURE
By Dr. Tilak S. Fernando
Pavitra was virtually thrown out of bed when her telephone rang at
three in the morning. The time in Sri Lanka was 8 am. Her elder sister, Needra,
had been so impatient to break the news to her sister in London about the
sudden illness of their mother Noelene.
Noelene had been a healthy woman in her late forties until one
evening when she had taken a shower, after getting drenched in the rain. Within an hour, she had developed high fever,
which did not respond to any of the drugs she had been prescribed.
Needra became worried,
when her mother started vomiting a blackish liquid, while complaining of joint
pains and a severe headache, and her body temperature was running exceedingly
high. She was rushed to a private
hospital immediately and was warded. During the afternoon ward-rounds the
doctor read Noelen’s blood report and suddenly hit the panic button. He told Needra that her mother needed 15 pints
of blood immediately.
“The patient was
suffering from Dengue and her blood count is seriously depleting rapidly”. The
doctor advised her.
“ Is that serious
doctor”?
“ Yes, if allowed to go
down drastically, an internal haemorrhage might take place, which would mean very
serious consequences. We need to find 15
pints of blood of O-Negative type, immediately.”
The doctor advised
Needra further, that donor’s blood would have to go through vigorous testing
processes for viruses, AID’s etc., and the serum had to be administered in the
form of ‘platelets’, which meant that a minimum of 5-6 hours were required for
the whole operation before it could be infused into the patient.
In London, Pavitra
received a second telephone call from Needra to inform her of the worst. The
two sisters were clutching on to their telephone receivers, from both ends and
started crying. Pavitra, in desperation, tried to book a direct Sri Lankan
Airways flight, but the only available flight was going through Male, which
meant a few more hours of delay in getting to Colombo.
Finally Pavitra’s flight
landed at Bandaranaike International Airport in Katunayaka, after two-hours of
scheduled arrival time, which meant that she could not get to the cemetery to
be at her mother’s funeral in time before the cremation.
During the hullabaloo at
the house, after the funeral, she did not see Hubert at all. Later Pavitra learnt
much to her relief that Hubert, her
stepfather, had abandoned their mother for another woman sometime ago. Noelene had been a good mother, but she had
been blinded by Hubert’s charm at first, but was terrified of him after
marriage.
That night Pavitra went
to bed hugging her mother’s photograph. She
could not have a wink of sleep, but was engrossed in deep thought and pain. Events and time overlapped flashing old and
painful memories in her mind.
She remembered vividly
how she celebrated her 12th birthday with her biological father Lyn; how her father surprised her with
a computer, as a birthday gift. She was
a budding young adolescent, five-foot tall, with curly hair up to shoulder
length. When she smiled, her bright
shiny eyes tapered, rounded rosy cheeks and withdrew to the maximum muscle
retraction, exposing a set of pearl white shapely teeth, which made her look
very attractive at a glance, with a deceptive look of a girl of 18 or 19!
A vivid recollection of
past events completely overwhelmed her; she could visualize herself as a young
girl hanging on to her father’s index finger, and running about in the parks
and everywhere.
‘What a happy family we
have been, and how blessed we were to have such loving and caring parents,’ she
used to think, but what Pavitra did not realize was that providence at times
could pick on someone purposely to serve a harsh blow. She was a Christian, and that made it even
harder for her to understand, as a 12-year-old girl, the intricate
philosophical attributes of Karma or the Law of Cause and Effect on people,
when she was separated from her father.
She remembered the day
her beloved father, Lyn, a man whom she worshipped like a god, had to leave
home after a blazing row with her mother. The suddenness and the whole incident
erupted like a volcano, and the instant parting between her parents went
through her like a poisoned knife biting into the very core of her young heart.
She became depressed and sobbed for days
on end, over the incident, and her elder sister managed to console her
explaining to her that ‘ in the present day and age these things do happen, and
families get split even after living as a unit under one roof for 20-25 years’!
At the end, she had to console herself
by listening to her sister that the father would have to first go through a
divorce and obtain a court order even to visit them!
Within 6 months of her
father’s departure Pavitra was taken by surprise one morning when an aerogramme
arrived from London. She was overcome with joy having recognized her father’s
handwriting on the address, and impatiently opened the letter and read it
swiftly. Her father had profusely
apologized to both girls for ‘abandoning’
them unexpectedly. Lyn had mentioned that he had to migrate to
the UK, and although he was 8 to 10.000 miles away from them, they were always
close to his heart, in mind and soul.
The second and the third
aerogramme followed the first, and the communications went on like a ritual
between the father and daughter, closing the gap between the distances that
kept them apart. In every letter Lyn made it a point to emphasise:
“Darling, no matter how
long it takes for you and me to live under the same roof again, you will
always…….and always be in my heart, soul and thought, every second of the hour,
every hour, day and week, I miss you
– love Dad.” That was something that
gave Pavitra the courage and the spirit to face up to the challenges that were
in store for her.
Hubert met Noelene at a
Colombo social gathering after her separation from Lyn. Pavitra could remember vividly
the first time she set eyes on Hubert. He looked so weird and petrifying. He
was bald, huge in stature, and 6 ft. tall.
Within months of Hubert
moving into their house, the whole atmosphere in the house changed. Hubert had
an uncontrollable temper, which the girls detested, especially when he started
bellowing at their mother for his food. He projected an appearance of being
always irritated, which frightened young Pavitra.
A few weeks after
Hubert’s arrival, Needra, her elder sister, made a sudden and a rash decision
to leave home to share a flat with a female colleague at work. Needra was
young, pretty and had sophisticated and mature outlook that helped her to get a
position in a foreign embassy, and working as a Personal Assistant to a
diplomat in Colombo. Her mother trusted Needra, and did not make a fuss when
she told her about her wish to share a flat with a girl friend in Colombo.
Pavitra on the other
hand, thought that her mother’s approval of Needra to leave the house was
because the mother would have sensed Hubert seemingly becoming a nuisance in
every respect under their roof, especially when he was under the influence of
liquor.
Seated on her bed in the
middle of the night, on the day of her mother’s funeral, and being unable to pull
herself together about her mother’s loss, one particular incident began to
torment Pavitra. She tried hard to erase it from her memory, but she could not,
instead a negative effect tried to overpower her repeatedly. It had been the
cause over the years, and this particular thought had always boomeranged in her
mind, from time to time devastating her mentality.
The sexual abuse on
Pavitra by Hubert started just after six months of Needra leaving home. Pavitra
could still feel the fear she experienced when Hubert touched her for the first
time and whispered in her ear, “If you are a good girl I will take you out to
McDonalds in the car later”.
For months, Pavitra
tried to ignore him. She became more and more rebellious to the dislike of
Hubert, who in turn became nasty towards her. Pavitra was now trapped in a gulf
between love she had for her mother, and the hatred she was developing day
after day towards Hubert. She was still a minor, and apart from that she could
not do much, even if she wanted to leave the house and her mother altogether.
One evening Hubert
demanded her to go with him to buy her a McDonald’s dinner. After driving through Rajagiriya’s drive-through McDonalds, he
suggested they go to Galle Face Green, to consume the food in a more relaxed
atmosphere. She had no choice.
For a while everything
seemed normal at the Galle Face Green, but when Hubert asked her to come back
to the back of his Toyota van, she felt a bit unusual. When Hubert later on,
asked her to take off her clothes and lie on a mattress, which he had laid on
the floor of the van, she felt like she was imagining things in a dream, and
not really happening to her, but for someone else.
It was Pavitra’s first
experience with a man and, in a helpless situation as such, she started to
shiver like a fish taken out of water. She became helpless, started to sweat
with fear, and not knowing what was in store for her in minutes!
When Hubert forcibly
raped her on the mattress, inside his van, like an animal she felt sick. Her
heart started to pound and thud with shock and repulsion as the brute continued
to molest her. She started crying with pain, and felt as if a knife had gone
through her. That was how little Pavitra lost her virginity to the man she
first thought was her stepfather!
Two months later Hubert
noticed her vomiting in the bathroom in the morning, became frightened thinking
he had made her pregnant! He panicked,
and had to find a ploy to cover his sins. Pavitra was clueless and naïve to
imagine that anything like that could happen to her.
Hubert approached
Noelene and told her what he saw in the bathroom in the morning and Pavitra
could be suffering from morning sickness. He advised Noelene not to dilly
dally, but to take her to a medical clinic, and get medical opinion
immediately. His conscience had started to play up, as he was certain by that
time little Pavitra had become pregnant by him.
Highly worried Noelene
rushed to the Medical Clinic with Pavitra impatiently to consult a female gynecologist
who was her friend.
“ What is your name
dear”? The lady doctor asked the girl calmly.
“Pavitra”
The gynecologist waited
patiently for Pavitra to raise her head and look up, then asked:
“ How old are you my
dear..?”
“Fifteen”
“ Do you know my dear
that you are carrying a little baby in your tummy, almost 2 months old. That is
what mothers call it being pregnant…!”
That shocked the little
girl, and her face stretched tight.
“Who is responsible for
this criminal act? Who is the father of the baby? Doctor paused.
Pavitra could not
possibly answer that question in front of her mother; a quick hiccup managed to
save her from that situation in answering. In deep silence, her mother’s eyes briefly
shut with shock and pain.
Pavitra was thrown into
a state of shock where she could neither move nor speak; yet she could hear
everything around her. As she fought back her tears, Noelene moved still closer
to her to comfort her, which even made Pavitra more painful to bear.
When Noelene told Hubert
about Pavitra’s condition, Hubert shouted at her calling her a ‘slag’. Noelene,
however, was sympathetic towards her daughter. Alter all, she had given birth
to her little girl, and she had to do everything possible to save her from a
social scandal, as well as from any detrimental psychological aftermath that is
certain to follow after this incident, whoever the father was.
The young girl was only
fifteen years of age and there was a whole world ahead of her, and as a mother
Noelene had to do something. In that respect, she was determined to see that
her little girl did not become a psychological victim for the rest of her life
because of one silly mishap she had been subjected to, for whatever reason.
Pavitra’s misted eyes
seemed to plead for help and support at the medical clinic. She was a minor and
had unfortunately become the plaything of fate! She had suddenly got marooned
within cross currents of being a captive to a pervert, where neither she could
control nor understand.
Noelene’s friend, the gynecologist
tried to explain to Noelene the gravity of the problem they had on their hands.
“Noelene, my dear
friend, because your daughter is a minor, and I am your friend as well as your
general practitioner, I have to declare in my medical observations and judgment
that the foetus is not healthy, and the chances of endangering the mother’s
health are high”.
“Under the Minor’s Act,
as a parent, you are allowed to consent so that I could perform an official
abortion on her. I need only one
signature, and if you could sign here, it could be formalised. I must also advise you, Noelene that it is the
only formal way out of this, in this predicament, and the only way you can help
your daughter and me as well, to play safely in legal terms. Would you like to sign here…. please.”
Pavitra’s eyes shut,
shoulders twitched and tears started to roll again, as her mother took the pen
from the doctor friend and signed across the dotted lines giving the gynecologist
the green light to perform an abortion on her.
However much Noelene
grilled Pavitra to find out who the father of the child was, she always
maintained naivety and maintained that she had no idea about it, even after the
abortion. She was pretty certain that her mother would not believe even if she
were to pin point and say it was Hubert, so she did not bother to tell anything
at all.
Pavitra suffered for
months in silence and Noelen’s broad-minded nature in handling the situation
calmly and intelligently helped Pavitra to heal her psychological wounds. After her A-Level results Pavitra’s father Lyn
sponsored her to go to London for higher education at the University of London.
She saw it as a means of escaping from everything at home, and jumped at the
idea to be completely free and away from her stepfather and looked forward to
unite with her father, Lyn, whom she worshipped.
In London, Pavitra once
again tried to put her broken life’s jig saw pieces into place amidst the
comforts and love, which she received in abundance from her father. Although
she had meant to ask Lyn one day, as to why he had to abandon them in the
manner when they were so young, she never gave a thought to such feelings
again. Pavitra never wanted to upset her father anymore.
She finished her first
degree at the UCL, and Lyn organized a work permit for her to live and work in
England and encouraged Pavitra to embark on a MSc and later on a PhD, but she
thought of making use of the gap-year facility granted to post-graduates and
planned to go on a tour to Paris first, when she suddenly received her sister
Needra’s phone call in the middle of night informing her about the mother’s
illness.
After her mother’s
seventh day almsgiving, Needra called Pavitra to a side. At first she panicked
because she had never seen her sister behaving in such a cautious manner,
especially when she said she wanted to discuss something of a confidential
nature. Needra’s facial expressions made Pavitra more worried and impatient to
know what it was.
“Gosh! Is she going to tell me that she is suffering
from a cancer of some sort?“ a thought entered Pavitra’s mind.
“ Nangi, I have to say
something confidential, which I have been keeping to myself for a long time”
Oh No! Akki, don’t tell me that you got cancer or
some terminal illness!”
“It was a kind of
psychological cancer, and you will be shocked to hear about it”
“Please Akki, you are
making me worried, please come out with it and make it quick” pleaded Pavitra
“Can you remember that
brute Hubert, our so called step-father? That monster once forced me into the
back of his van and sexually abused me; then he threatened me to go to bed with
him whenever he fancied. He pressurised me to be his mistress, can you believe
it? I could not possibly tell all these
to mother or you at the time and that was the reason I decided to suddenly find
a flat in Colombo, and run for my life” Needra gave Pavitra a full confession.
Pavitra felt as if she
was going to faint any moment having heard that from her sister. Both sisters
were glad that at long last Hubert had left the country having abandoned their
mother and was believed to be living in Dubai.
Later Needra explained
to Pavitra how hard it had been to compress all those traumatic experiences of
guilt and indelible nasty memories for such a long time.
“ I did not even want to
tell mother about it to make things worse for her, as she had a plate full of
worries having to put up with such a beast”.
Needra managed to get rid of all she had compacted in her heart with a
long sigh.
Pavitra, on her part,
decided to put concrete over her secrets and experiences with Hubert ensuring
that no one else in the world knew the agony and the mental torture she had to
undergo for years on end. Her nasty experience
at such a young age in fact had traumatized her to put men off from her life
forever.