I met Sahira, an impressive and graceful woman in her early 40s, a couple of years back. I could imagine how attractive she must have looked in her younger days. What I did not imagine was how her beauty almost became her bane all those years ago.

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Sahira was a bright and hard-working student who hailed from a middle-class family. She was always a topper in school. When she was in the 12^th grade, a young guy, Nasir, was attracted to her and proposed. He was a local politician’s son and her senior in college.

Sahira was too focused on her studies to bother. He approached her again a couple of times and she kept refusing to be his girlfriend. He became obsessed with her and soon his parents approached her parents with a marriage proposal.

Focused as she was on becoming a doctor, Sahira was not interested in marriage or any relationship at that time. Hence, her parents politely refused his parents’ proposal. That hurt Nasir’s ego.

On a Valentine’s Day, Nasir approached her in the college courtyard. He was very angry and kept coming closer to her aggressively. In a bid to protect herself, Sahira pushed him and he fell on the ground. Many students in the courtyard saw that. Nasir was embarrassed and left in a rage on his bike.

Unfortunately, as he sped away, he met with an accident. He was hospitalized and one of his legs was operated upon. It took him five to six months to recover but he was left with a limp.

Meanwhile, Sahira obtained good marks in her examination and secured admission at a reputed medical college. She was in the first year of her MBBS when Nasir limped out of the hospital. He started stalking her again.

While Sahira remained focused on her studies, Nasir’s anger had multiplied manifold. He blamed Sahira for his condition. His friends made it worse by shaming him for being a loser before a girl.  

One day, Nasir and his friends followed Sahira while she was on her way home from college, and kidnapped her. They took her to an isolated place, which was probably his uncle’s farmhouse. Nasir once again asked her to marry him. When she refused, he locked her up in a room. He raped her multiple times for three days. At the end of the third day, she was left outside the gates of her building. She could barely reach the entrance to her apartment, where she collapsed.

When Sahira woke up, she found herself in a hospital. Her father was also hospitalized because he had suffered a heart attack, seeing Sahira’s condition. Sahira’s mother was in a state of shock and so the neighbours had hospitalized her too.

Nasir’s father came to meet her at the hospital. He started by trying to convince her to withdraw her police complaints. Then he started threatening her that her father would die, considering his heart condition, if the news became public.

Still a helpless teenager, Sahira didn’t know what to do. She wanted to save her father’s life and was convinced by Nasir’s father that the only way to do that was by getting married to Nasir.

They got her discharged from the hospital. She was married to Nasir at 2 a.m. that very same night.

The marriage worsened her agony. She went to live at her in-laws’ residence where she was kept locked up in a room and ill-treated. She was tortured every day by Nasir. He would whip her with his belt and press a burning cigarette on different parts of her body. She was made to survive on just one banana a day.

Soon, Sahira found out that she was pregnant. However, the torture continued. Nasir’s mother played a major role in aggravating Nasir to keep torturing her so that the baby would die.

Once Nasir kicked her in the stomach and she started bleeding. Her motherly instincts helped her gather the courage to escape from there at the first available opportunity, with the help of an old neighbour, a widow.

With no footwear and no money, she ran for her life and that of her unborn child. Her parents took her to a hospital, lodged a police complaint and also filed for a divorce.

Her own family advised Sahira to choose abortion because she was very young and had a whole life ahead of her. She could get married to someone in a few years and settle down. Her family didn’t have enough money to support one more member.

However, at the age of 19, Sahira decided that she would not remarry but raise the child on her own.

Her divorce case lasted for over six years. She felt she was being raped again and again in the court room as the lawyers pestered her with questions and made her go through the whole case in agonising detail.

There was the routine transfer of judge, not once but thrice, while the case was being argued. With every new judge she would have to go through the whole history all over again.

Sahira’s father supported her through the ordeal and suffered the humiliation with her in the courtroom and outside.

During the sixth year of the case, Nasir was caught by the police in another rape case. He was apprehended in his car while he was returning with the victim and his friends to Pune, from the same farmhouse where Sahira was once raped.

As his father was no more, Nasir was left with no one to help him stay out of jail this time. In the face of mounting legal pressure, he absconded for some time.

When Sahira’s lawyer came to know about this new rape case, he argued before the judge that raping young women was Nasir’s behaviour pattern and not a one-time crime. Sahira also pleaded to the then presiding judge for justice, narrating what she had had to go through for six years.

The judge issued a warrant for Nasir’s arrest. Left with no other option, Nasir’s lawyer reached out to Sahira’s lawyer for an out-of-court settlement. Nasir was ready to give complete custody of the child to Sahira and also give her a divorce, if she would let go of all charges and cases against Nasir and also let go of the huge amount owed to her in alimony arrears. Sahira agreed because this would free her daughter for life from having to maintain any contact with Nasir. For Sahira, that mattered the most.

While the divorce case was on, Sahira tried to pursue MBBS. She was in an advanced stage of pregnancy when she appeared for the first-year final exams. However, she didn’t have the financial support to raise her child and hence decided to switch academic streams. She needed to take up a part time job to support her education and her child.

Sahira had to give up on her dream of becoming a doctor. But she didn’t give up on her dream to be a successful woman, a responsible daughter and a loving mother.

Her parents helped in raising her daughter as Sahira completed her higher education—Economics (Hons) and MBA (Finance). All the while, Sahira was also working, first part-time and then going on to pick up fulltime jobs.

She has worked mainly with international banks and is currently in a leadership position in a European bank. An alumna of one of India’s leading institutes of management, Sahira continues to pursue her doctorate in organisation management.

Sahira remains unmarried and stays with her daughter in a beautiful house she owns. Her daughter, an academic topper, has grown up to be a mature and responsible young graduate.

Sahira has been supporting her parents, grandparents, families of her siblings and a few old relatives abandoned by their children.

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I had goosebumps then as I was listening to her life story. I have goosebumps as I share it today. I did not contribute much to her life but I am sharing Sahira’s story in the hope of inspiring someone who is feeling hopeless for whatever reason.

Sahira did not succumb to the trauma and humiliation that many expected her to pull her under. It was tough for her to study and earn simultaneously.

While many women (and even men) in her place would have surrendered before abuse and violence, Sahira chose to fight back. She didn’t just survive but built a purposeful, beautiful life for herself, her daughter and others.

Sahira chose to celebrate life as a victor, not give in as a victim.

May you always remain strong and an inspiration, Sahira!

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Names and personal details have been changed to protect identities.