55 Fiction is a form of micro-fiction that refers to the works of fiction limited to a maximum of fifty-five words.
She looked at him, ‘How adorable! Making monkey noises, jumping… to see a smile on their daughter’s face’.
Still the girl is sitting stoically. ‘She will come around, sometime!’
A beep and she quickly kissed bye to her ‘Perfect’ family, oblivious to the panicky look of the little one.
“Come to daddy, baby!” he smiled.
PS: Incest is an unspoken crime. But voice should be raised against it!
Image Courtesy: Google Images
42 Responses
Shilpa!
A great 55Fiction!
Very different!
Hey if possible check out my recent post!
It could have been better. I have seen better from you.
Hey! Amazing story and very relevant and disturbing topic too.
Incest is the most common form of child abuse. It can affect the victim for many years and into adulthood.
Handled with great sensitivity.
Damn!! Was it really a story about incest? I could have never guessed had I not read Garima’s comment.
Amazing how the perception about every single word changed after that.
A simple, subtle but a meaningful story. Wonderfully narrated. 🙂
Evn i was clueless till read garima’s comments…
A highly contrversial topic, dealt in d best possibl non-controversial manner.. kudos 4 tht..
Howevr, u cud hav written it a manner 2 make it a little easier to comprehend:)
?
*Scratching My Head*
Side effects of the award ceremony?
I couldn’t catch a word!
(or blame it on my mood)
Shilpa,
I for some reason guessed this to be a story little girl’s passing : the father’s dead and the little one is joining him by kissing her perfect life good bye is how I read it till I read Garima’s comment. Maybe it was the angelic photo or maybe it was the libation 🙂 . Nonetheless it is a topic that that needs to be brought to the fore …
Thats one different 55fiction I have seen.
Incest is heinous crime and hope people get some bloddy sense 🙁
Different and brave one Shilpa.
Cheers
actually speaking I was perhaps the first one who read this 55F…but didn’t comment because I couldn’t a understand a thing..
and now that I have understood, I really appreciate the way you have raised ur voice against this seldom discussed topic..
Oh this was stunning…
Really its a controversial topic which very few people dare to speak about!!
It took a second to strike what the story meant… 🙂
sorry.. agree with Pawan.. even I dint get it 🙁
I got the context the moment I read the PS. Such disturbing issue written in a very subtle way. Great one.
PS. Is it possible to create pages in blogger like we can create in wordpress. If possible..it would be great if you make one page and paste the awards there…coz there more that gonna come. Just a suggestion and thought!
Hey Shilpa,
I did not understand???
good one indeed!!!
PS: as Amrit said, you shoud try to add a tab to ur blog and create pages, accessing them through links on ur tab … like in my blog …
Child incest is very bad. It is really bad. Now, I understand a bit.
well…i understood the topic at the first go….was it as difficult to follow as your fellow bloggers say….
can’t say….
nice attempt to bring to the fore a topic which is wrapped & hushed up….
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A gripping tale…. but I think the ‘PS’killed it:)
Hi. You have an interesting blog here. Your this 55 Fiction is good, subtle and sensitive.
And the comments for this post are equally interesting.
While some have not understood it completely. Some understood only after a lady’s explanation!!
It’s a classic case of ‘different strokes for different folks’.
Found too much of dichotomy in comments here, so felt the need to comment on it! Hope you dont mind.
It is a good 55 fiction,Shilpa! I think I understood it after reading p.s.only! Yes incest is a crime and we should raise a voice against it!
I guess, I proved my point. Look at the comments one above and one below mine!!
Hey, visit my blog http://rahulsharmaspeaks.blogspot.com/
there is something waiting for you 🙂
Hope you like it:)
I generally whenever I read about incest or rape.I only feel that we are in category of the pseudo-civilised animals.
The main thing is that one has to realise raising voices and placards in such sensitive issues would not help.
For instance prostitution is morally damned but is not ill treating prostitutes condemnable too.
These crimes cannot perish from our society it was there long back it would be just because of varied perceptions.
Yes, I do agree with U Shilpa on this issue. Incest is heinous crime which is disturbing the family life of many and yet no one raises a voice against it.
It’s kind of Balika Vadhu of crimes, everyone knows about it but nobody claims to watch it.
Shilpa can U join my blog at
Regards,
Devashish
My blog link
http://devashishvrao.blogspot.com
@ Amar Chintha: I think you got the focus wrong. Comparing prostitutes and child abusers in an argument is highly insensitive. There is nothing comparable about child abuse and prostitution except for the ‘sex’ involved. Even if there is, a prostitute and an abused child are to be considered as victims. Child Abusers need no mercy, they need psychiatric help!
People take placards and raise voice not in a hope to completely obliterate the undesirable. They do that also to bring an awareness in the society. If at least one person is educated so that he or she can face the issue of child abuse boldly, I think raising voice is worth the bargain.
“These crimes cannot perish from our society” sounds like a bit too hard on the cultural psyche of India. There is nothing like a pseudo- civilized animal. Civilization is not a lie. You sound like ‘civilization’ is undesirable. If human beings are still existing today,that is evidence enough to prove that culture and civilizations are good enough and there is no crime that cannot be completely obliterated. It may take a little time, but it can be. The time required for change should not be an excuse to resit socio-cultural discourses.
Completing what I said:
The time required for change should not be an excuse to resit socio-cultural discourses that lead to change 🙂
@Sojo Varughese
you got me wrong,
child abusers are criminal but i do not feel that prostitutes are criminal.
criminal are the people who encourage prostitution,every child has a dream and most of the prostitutes never dream t in their child hood to be one.
why i used the term psuedo-civilised because we are hypocrites we on one hand say big things and on other we do basest act.
To tell you more clearly incest is different and child abuse is another there are many countries like belgium where incest is not crime.
I would suggest you to read on child abuses in past glorious civilization it was practiced, but was an unspoken crime.
The reason i said it would never change because sexual relations are private on cannot interfere.
Consensual incest can never be reported.
Now incestuous child abuse who would report?
Many social issues like rehab,fear of social acceptability and all will hinder the victim and would remain unspoken crime.
thing i suggest,
One must be sensitive,
damage which has been done is done now to make the later life a better life one must be empathetic and provide help in real terms to the victim else every education would be nothing but perverted fun.
eg. to educate people about birth control government issued ADS and many people laugh at it they don’t want to see the issue all they want is fun.
very well written and hard hitting.
You have a award waiting for you! With my 10 honest things! Please collect it!!
Extremely well written and very hard hitting…
Unfortunately, society does not let a peep out at crimes like this. There seems to be a ‘conspiracy of silence’…
Contrast this with the hue and cry raised ‘coz of girls wearing jeans…. !!!
There was this girl in univ… where I was studying. She came from a small town, kinda village.
Apparantly there were about half a dozen cases in her village where the father had ‘married’ his own daughter… and have kids too. When each of these cases came to light… a ‘panchayat’ was called. The person(s) in question would appear before it and ask the same question: “If I have a farm/garden where I have planted fruit trees. Once the fruit(s) are ripe… should I have the ‘right’ over those fruit(s)… or my neighbours and/or strangers?”
Imagine… ??? Needless to say… the ‘panchayat’ would rule in favour of these persons. Matter finished.
An event described in the “Mahabharata”…”Draupadi’s vastraharan”… is an event… perhaps. It is also an example or even a metaphor. On the “decadence” of society, on the norms of culture and the decline of “dharma”. “Dharma” is not “religion” as we understand today. It is “rightousness”.
If people deviate from “dharma”… what eventually happens… what their failing to uphold or do their “dharma” leads to… is shown very well through this one event/metaphor.
As Lord Krishna too mentions… in the “Bhagavad Gita”. A society which stood by silently and simply watched, did not react nor protested… on such a shameful event… the “vastrahaaran” of Draupadi… on the “apamaan” of the Queen of Hastinapur, the daughter of King Drupad, the wife of the Pandavas… an extraordinary woman, a major and important personality in her own right. What will such a society do when ordinary people… the weak and the defenceless, including ordinary women are subjected to ill treatment, injustice and torture.
It will shatter a society and give rise to all kinds of ills.
Therefore, Lord Krishna advises Arjun and all of us… to do our “duty”… to uphold “dharma”… without thinking or worrying about the “result”, “consequences” or the “aftermath”…. failing which we are doomed forever. He implores and advises us to fight the forces which are evil and are anti-social. We should not blame “external” factors for the failure or the decadence of society… it happens due to our actions… only.
Unfortunately… his words are being echoed in our society…
hey bold story and very disturbing…..indeed an unspoken crime where the culprit moves out unheard……but the victim lies in shatters…..well written ……kudos to u
@ ALL: THANK YOU Guys, for your feedback…for voicing your concerns… for condemning this heinous crime!
A special thanks to Sojo, Nilanjan @ Amar-Chinta and Roshmi for adding newer dimensions to this post!!
Reports say that the incidents that we read or see in the media about incestuous rape are just the tip of a big iceberg!!
So, I guess, awareness and action are the need of the hour against this horrendous crime!
A topic rarely chosen .. but very crisply put.
nice story with a very loud moral .. i liked !!
@ lostworld: Thanks a lot Rohitha! 🙂
Am glad! 🙂
@ Amar,
I don’t know if I got you wrong or you worded it wrong. When you said, “For instance prostitution is morally damned but is not ill treating prostitutes condemnable too.” I thought you were implying that ill-treating child abusers is condemnable too.
Even there are certain things I don’t agree with in your second reply:
1. What on earth made you feel that prostitutes, even if you say most of them, never had a dream when they were children. Labels apart, even prostitutes are human beings and they too have childhood and every child dreams.
2. I don’t think all of us are hypocrites as you say. When people are speaking about something, to me it means they are thinking about it. Thinking about it is also good enough because gradually it may lead people to doing something about it.
3. I was not talking only about incestuous child abuse only. I was talking about child abuse in general. And I firmly believe that talking about it as a crime will certainly make abused children think about it as a crime. And an awareness about it will certainly make parents listen to their children if they tell them about the abuse they are undergoing. That is the reason why we need to talk about it.
4. About people treating it as fun! Look at Shilpa’s post – can you show me any one who commented taking this just as fun? May be immature youngsters who have never seen life as it is may giggle. Or perverts may look at it as an opportunity for self-gratification, you know what I mean. But I don’t think sensible human beings will laugh off something as serious as child abuse. To give you an example, women in India are less abused today than olden days because people talked about it. Do you know there is a law in India to tackle abuse of women? But we do not have a law in India to tackle child abuse! Why? because we have not talked about it enough.
As about my reading, I think I am reading enough on child abuse after reading SHilpa’s post, even before you suggested I read 🙂
@sojo
1)you misquoted me again I said that prostitutes never dreamt to be one in childhood it means that no child dreams in general to be a prostitute.
2)Do you know socialists are always branded Utopians
3,4)we the blog readers are not the majority nor the world is dominated by intellectuals. Reporting crime may be okay but the way it is to be represented should also be regulated.I said that development of mass humane consciousness is more important than intellectual discussions.
I am not criticizing this post I say that it is needless of discussion even such readings cannot help pedophiles they would eternally commit child abuse but the addressing should be done to people in mass so that we can help victim to lead normal life .
“Laws of state do not help in inculcation of humanity on ly love and understandin can”
Gave me goose bumps! Loved it… have you read ‘The Colour Purple’? It’s about incset and child abuse (and domestic violence and lots more)… this reminded m of the book by Alice Walker.
I love your blog… it’s a blog with a heart.
@ indianhomemaker: Oh! And yes, the tales of incest and DV are much scarier!
I have just read the reviews of this book!
Thank you, you made my day!! 🙂
do read my take on this topic..