Scarred, but not scared

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A happy marriage and three beautiful children. That’s all I wanted from life. I was never career-oriented. I was 24 when my now ex-husband proposed to me. It was an arranged set-up and he was an electrical engineer. I agreed to marry him since he seemed like a nice guy and I was afraid that if I said no, I might not be able to find a guy as good.

Barely two months into the marriage I realised we had nothing in common and that my decision was a hasty one. So I requested him for a divorce. And I say requested here; not demanded. He got livid and said he would never agree to one. That’s when I started living with my mother.
Then, one night when I was returning home from work, he was standing at the staircase of my mother’s building wearing black clothes, gloves and glares. Before I could ask him what he was doing there, he flung acid on my face. Nobody in the neighbourhood came to my rescue.
I ran up to the house, rushed to the bathroom and sat under the tap. The clothes I was wearing just fell off from my body and the room was filled with smoke. My mother rushed me to the hospital.
I refused to open my eyes for the longest time because I had read about people losing their vision after acid attacks. I was just praying all along that I don’t lose my sight. Finally when I did open my eyes I saw a beautiful gulmohar flower outside the hospital window and thanked God for the little mercy he had shown.
The attack completely disfigured my face. I lost my face, my identity and started wearing a burkha every time I stepped out. It gave me some respite from the stares that would greet me wherever I went. I remember being alienated and ridiculed by friends and relatives. My best friend wasn’t allowed to speak to me lest she developed an aversion to the idea of marriage.
Nobody would want to see me or touch me. Some would ask me what I had done to provoke such a reaction from my husband. I wouldn’t know how to answer that. But in a way, I look at it as a price I paid for my freedom. My husband fled the country after the incident. He apparently has a family of his own now. I know that he would never have let me go easily. In a strange way I felt free after the burn.
Things started changing after I went to the US in 2001 to attend a burn victims’ conference. Some people there weren’t as lucky as me; they had lost their eyesight and faced bigger disfigurement. But each one wore their scar like a medal. It encouraged me to start living my life again. I was there for 18 months and during my time there, I underwent surgery and spoke to students at colleges and churches creating awareness about the situation. I wanted to continue the work after coming to India and I got involved with organisations like Magic Bus and Muktangan.
I describe myself as a disabled. Some people take offence to that term and come up with alternative terms for it. I may not technically qualify to be a disabled person but the condition has put restrictions on my life. I can no longer hope to live life as a regular person again.
I have come across both subtle and harsh forms of discrimination since the incident. I recently approached a city college to ask them if I could talk to their students on the concept of “normative beauty”. The principal of the college turned down my request saying she wanted to protect her students from the “ugliness” of the situation and was afraid it might turn them against the idea of marriage. There have been times when I was not allowed to enter restaurants because the guard outside was skeptical about my appearance. Incidents like these only further strengthen my resolve to keep up the fight.
I hope to do a lot of work through my organisation Palash that will psychologically rehabilitate victims like myself and allow them to live a “normal” life again. I want them to appreciate the smaller things in life and move on like I have. I haven’t heard from my husband since the incident nor do I wish to. Since he fled the country immediately, the police couldn’t catch him either. But the focus of my life is no longer to see to it that he gets punished. I am sure he will pay in some way or the other, but in the meantime, I prefer to channelise my energy more productively by helping others who might have suffered my fate.

As told to Sushmita Murthy