A 20-year-old girl was raped,’ screamed the headlines. The outraged public demanded that the men who sexually abused her, be hanged. Her family and relatives were gradually running out of tears and were humiliated to see their daughter on television channels — and eventually, started to blame the victim for the act. It began with the parents who said the girl should have never gone out in the first place.
Unfortunately, this series of events has become very common — everytime a girl has to go through something this traumatic. Kathak dancer from Chennai, Shrita Baskar, was moved when she got an opportunity to represent what goes through a rape survivor’s mind. Through a series of 23 still photographs, captured by photographer Ganesh Toasty, Shrita narrates a riveting tale of attempted rape and the victim blaming that a survivor has to battle.
The series follows Tanirika, enacted by Shrita, who is on her way home, while she gets dragged by a few men into the woods, who attempt to rape her, but are stopped by another man. They abandon her in bruises.
“Victim blaming is an issue that needs to be given importance to, in our society. After a rape is reported, we often see the dialogue on what the government must do, whether the rapist must be hanged or not, etc., but never imagine what the survivor must be going through — the trauma and the self-blaming she takes to.
So, when Ganesh approached me with the idea, I thought it was really challenging and moving. I wanted to explore the emotions, as we hadn’t done anything like this before. I think my dancing and theatre background helped me with displaying the right expressions,” explains the 25-year-old.
Shot at a pine forest around ECR, she says that it was really hard to empathise with a rape victim, no matter how hard one tries. “I tried my best to bring out the expressions. The forest was so deserted and I imagined how difficult it would be for a woman to get help if she was molested there. I had to think of that in my head and put myself in that situation to bring out emotions. What was challenging, was to do it all in the form of still images, and not a film,” the dancer elaborates, hoping that this will help highlight what rape survivors in our country go through.
(To see the entire series go to facebook/Blackpearlphotography)
