“My daughter will live. And I will watch her grow up, touch the highest echelons of the world where she will be unstoppable and go on to do something big. After all, that we have gone through, I don’t know anymore what to expect from life. The only thing that I am sure of is that my daughter is special, and I would never let the scars of this incident torment her in future.”
She spoke, and we listened. Standing beside the two burly security guards outside the Intensive Care Unit of JK Lone hospital, we were swayed away by what the mother of the three-year-old rape victim currently admitted to the hospital had to say.

For a moment it was easy to ignore the scurrying footsteps of patients all around us and see the world, as black and white and coarse as it appears to a single mother, whose toddler is battling for her life behind the closed doors of the ICU.

“Mai zyada padhi likhi nahi hu. I have studied up to class 4. By the time our train from Mumbai reached Jaipur that night, we were tired. I couldn’t contact the person who had promised me a job and here we were, alone in a new place with nowhere to go.”

“I didn’t have enough money to afford a hotel or lodge. Walking for a long time is not possible since I am physically challenged. That’s when I thought of taking shelter at the Mahaveer Viklang Sangsthan at SMS Hospital. It turned out to be the longest night of my life.”

She stops, unbridled emotions clouding her face, as she reflects on the time she searched for her little girl in every corner of the hospital premises after she went missing, calling her out repeatedly but to no avail. At that moment, the sprawling campus of the SMS Hospital appeared to her like a maze of sorrow.

The security guard standing a few feet apart us looks at us knowingly.

“Teen din me media se bat karke thak chuki hai,” he had told us earlier.

Right from the beginning, our photographer Sanchit and I had tried to keep the conversation as subtle as possible. After facing hordes of intruding and insensitive questions from overcurious scribes, she was wary. As I reflect upon the 15 minutes that team JWB spoke to her outside the ICU, I felt that the reason she opened up to us was that we let her control the course of the conversation. At times her words were inconsistent or loosely strung and sometimes fiery. We didn’t want to take the fire out of them.

“Monsters lurk everywhere. The next morning, when I saw my girl at the police station, I couldn’t recognize her. I still can’t shake off the visuals away. The bite marks all over her body, swollen face, torn skin and flesh protruding from some parts of her body, it was a nightmare from which I wanted to wake up. What kind of monsters would do this to a three-year-old girl? I don’t wish this fate even to my worst enemy.”

“I want them to be punished. They should be bathed with acid for what they have done. I want to kill them, and I don’t have any inhibitions to say this. If I get a chance, I want to punish the monsters with my own hands. I don’t want any other child to go through what my daughter has been made to. Why children? I can’t stop asking this question again and again. They should be punished in such a way that an example could be set for the future. They should feel the same pain that they inflicted on my daughter.”

Exasperated, she pauses for a moment. I ask her about her family. Her lips quiver for a moment before the answer comes out, absolute and strong.

“I don’t want to talk about her father. He left us five months ago and since then I haven’t spoken to him. I don’t think he knows about the incident. And I don’t want to tell him either. He doesn’t exist for me anymore. I didn’t even inform my parents. They could never digest the fact that I had married against their wishes. I occasionally visit them, but surely you can understand that if there were any support for me from their end, I wouldn’t have headed to Jaipur in search of a job with a three-year-old in tow. I know that I have to do this alone. I am the only parent that my daughters will ever need.”

I enquire gently about her daughters.

“Yes, I have two other daughters. One is nine-years-old while the other six. I didn’t tell them about what happened to their sister. They are studying in Mumbai and live in a hostel. I spoke with their teachers and hostel warden. When I called the hostel administration to inform, I heard them crying.”

She says that in the last few days, scores of people had promised her help, but none of their assurances have resulted into financial help. However, she says that Manan Chaturvedi, Chairperson of Rajasthan State Commission for Protection of Child Rights has promised her a job. Chaturvedi has said that she will discuss it with her once her daughter recovers fully.

“When I came to Jaipur I knew that I won’t be able to do physically tiring jobs because of my disability. I can do embroidery and had also done a course on sewing some time back. I also know the basic know-how of working in beauty parlors. Sewing is something that I am quite confident about.”

A few passersby heading to the OPD throw furtive glances at our motley group before being politely told by the security personnel to leave.

“I know we can do this, build a better life for my daughters with everyone’s support. I don’t want the monsters to have the last laugh. I don’t want this incident to have any implications on the life of my daughter.”

“Bacchi ro rahi hai,” says the female sub-inspector who is on duty inside the ICU. Apparently, the little one is distraught on not seeing her mother for 15 minutes.

After a few parting words as she hurries away to the ICU to calm her daughter, we know that it’s a long journey ahead for this single mother and her three daughters. And I don’t have the faintest doubt while saying that they will brave the fight and come up on the top.

PS. If you want to help the mother-daughter duo in any way possible, please contact Dr. Ashok Gupta, director of the JK Lone Hospital. At present the hospital staff and administration are providing for the treatment expenses and the child is recovering. Your generosity can have the significant impact on their lives and show them the brighter side of the world.

Also, the district legal services authority has approved Rs. 2.25 lakh for the duo. This support has been provided under the scheme of Rajasthan Victim Compensation Scheme, 2011. This amount will be a fixed deposition while Rs. 25,000 will be deposited in the bank that can be spent on the little one under the supervision of her father/mother.