An invisible crime and Shattered innocence

Book review on Bitter Chocolate:Child sexual abuse in India by Pinki Virani

Sexual abuse at any age is traumatic, but when it happens to a

child, the results can last for a lifetime. Sexual abuse of children is not a pleasant topic of
conversation or subject material for a book. When I read this book,I wanted to tell
everyone that here is a book that tells you a reality of our society that everyone knows it
is there but wants to ignore!!! To whomsoever I showed this book, except a few, the
major reaction was-“stop reading such books”. While the general human community, and
the Indian society in particular, are hypocrisy personified and refuse to acknowledge the
alarming increase of instances of Child sexual abuse, we have a journalist-cum-author
who is bold enough to write on the act she herself was once subjected to - child sexual
abuse.
Pinki Virani specialises in writing on unsavoury subjects. She
shot into fame with the classic Aruna’s Story, about a young nurse who was to marry a
doctor and was raped by a vengeful sweeper. She has been in a coma for over 20 years
while the rapist has served his term in jail and is now a free man. Her second book Once
Was Bombay likewise narrates the story of the decline of the once prosperous, orderly
metropolis to Mumbai of Shiv Sainiks and mafia gangs extorting money from
shopkeepers and professionals and battling each other in the streets. She did Masters in
journalism with the Aga Khan Foundation grant, was an intern with the Sunday Times
(London), and returned to Bombay to edit Mid-Day. She is known for her writings about
taboo topics and her earlier books set the trend for “Bitter Chocolate”. Being a victim
herself, author has minimized nothing. She asks a lot of questions which provoke you and
the facts serve merely to stoke the fire even more. Her direct approach to the subject
gives a lot of insight into the issue ,which has led this book to become a landmark in
writing bold non-fiction in India.
The book reveals how in most cases, the offender is someone
known to the family. It might be an uncle, a family friend, and in certain shocking cases,
even the parent or grandparent. Children of both sexes face this problem and even infants
are not spared. While some children are lucky enough not to have registered the
experience and forget it in due course of time, others are haunted by it for the rest of their
lives. The victim must realise that the fault is not his/hers - whether the abuse was with
his/her consent or not. What happened may have been wrong, but he/she himself/herself
is not at fault. How is a child to make sense of the fact that a trusted uncle, or a family
friend, or teacher, or worst of all, her father is making sexual advances to her? She may
just know that something is very wrong, she may be intimidated into keeping quiet, and
perhaps she knows that even if she does tell someone, she may not be believed. Perhaps
she senses that somehow she will be blamed. Perhaps she feels deeply ashamed; surely
there is something wrong with her which is why this is happening to her. The closer the
relationship, and the longer lasting the abuse, the worse the consequences for the abused
child. The author is very clear about who is to blame. No, it doesn't matter if the child
didn't protest, or even enjoyed the early sexual experiences, what the abuser does is just
very very wrong. The long-term consequences of this betrayal of trust include mental
health problems such as fear, depression, lack of self-esteem, social and sexual
dysfunction, the list goes on and on.
This powerful and ambitious book covers a lot of ground, from making
real the devastating consequences of childhood sexual abuse through a hundred varied
case histories to providing suggestions for improving the Indian legal system's response
to abuse, and a guide for survivors. Throughout the book, Virani never loses sight of the
child who is being abused and remains its steadfast and fierce advocate. Her style of
writing is direct and forceful. While describing the several case histories in the book, she
gracefully avoids making the narration either pornographic or excessively gory or violent.
Instead she conveys the unspeakable horror, confusion, and utter wrongness of these
children's experiences by using simple factual language and by telling the story from the
child's point of view.
The book opens with an account brave and devoid of self-pity of the
author s own experience. Going beyond blaming, Pinki Virani then proceeds with her
insightful analysis of the issue in three notebooks. The foreword of the book must be
read. Here the author explains how her book should be read. She recommends that if the
trauma is too hard, the reader must skip straight to the Exit Cycle.
The writing is very gripping and touching.See these: “Every child who
is raped by an adult turns into a statistic. A life barely lived, already a horrific statistic”.
Then again : “Somebody has used her like an ashtray and stubbed his cigarette all over
her; somebody has then thrown her out of his car like garbage.
Virani deals with the issue in three parts called "The Notebooks".
The first part deals with the betrayal of the trust and the perpetration of the crime in
what is the safest haven for a child - the sanctity of his or her home, by the very people
supposed to be their protectors: father, mother, uncle, aunt, grandparent, elder brother or
sister. Notebook 1 starts off with an account of the author's own childhood experience. It
then touches upon scores of instances of CSA from all across the country, cutting across
social strata (both of the victim and the perpetrator) and age of the victim. There are some
instances where the abused is too young to even know she has been abused!. This part of
the book tells you what CSA is. The author says that often cases of CSA are not
identified since people don’t really know what would count as CSA. This section makes
all that clear.Child Sexual Abuse are of many forms,ie, Rape, Molestation, Fondling,
Exhibitionism, Sexual sadism,etc.. She also discusses various cases of CSA in this
section, giving an account of almost every kind of CSA case. Yes, the driver, liftman,
security guard at school might be looked at suspiciously, and the child might be warned
to be cautious of such people. But what if the abuser is a person who, ostensibly, is
supposed to protect the child? What if the child is violated by uncles, teachers,
grandfathers, older cousins, family friends, even brothers and most shocking of all –
fathers? This is not all that rare – as Pinki Virani details out in the book.
The second notebook deals extensively only with such case studies.
The actual effect of child rape is fully explained as are the consequences to be faced in
adult life, as victims turn abusers. Notebook 2 undertakes a long-term study of a couple
of real-life stories, thereby examining the effects of CSA on a victim. It explains the
short-term and long-term effects of CSA, and how it has the potential to destroy a
person's life – forever. Some of the effects mentioned include:
• Physical scars and emotional insecurity (these short-term effects are pretty
obvious)
• Confused sexuality, promiscuous behaviour on part of the victim (this is a long-
term effect where the victim might experiment with homosexuality/multiple partners
in an attempt to “erase” the memory of the abuse).
• Problems in family life, including emotional and sexual problems
• Most destructive of all, the abused may turn predator in the long run, and when
the child grows up, (s)he may end up abusing a child in turn.
The third notebook is positive and perhaps the most important part of
the book Some of the sections in it are "prevention than cure", "dealing with
disclosure", "child protection units", "exit cycle", "to the victim", "healing yourself".
This helps the victim deal with the trauma of CSA.
because it lists several guidelines, help lines, help books and a list of psychiatrists in
major cities and towns who deal with abused children. Two very important aspects
have been highlighted - one is belief in the child who complains of sexual abuse, and
the other is that prevention is better than cure. For the latter Virani has listed a whole
list of guidelines that parents should follow to prevent CSA. Notebook 3 comes round
to providing approaches to prevention of CSA. But not before it touches upon the
reasons the abusers have a free run in India:
• For one, the laws pertaining to CSA in India are grossly inadequate. Only rape (as
in, penetration) carries any significant punishment.
• Secondly, the abusers are probably aware that there are very small chances of the
truth coming out into the open. Even if it does, our notion of family pride ensures that
everything will be hushed-up and the abuser is free to go find his(/her) next target.
• The book provides examples where a judge simply refused to believe that a
grandfather was abusing his granddaughter. This shows how skewed the upholders of
the law are with respect to the issue of CSA.
• Finally, the abuser is aware that even if a case gets to court, it is an extremely
uphill task for the family of the child to prove anything. The child will have to be
produced in court and will be cross-examined. It is definitely easy to confuse a child
during cross-examination.
The book has captured a poem written by a 12-year old girl
sums up what children of her age have to go through:

I asked you for help, and you told me you would

If I told you the things he did to me.
You asked me to trust you, and you made me
Repeat them to fourteen different strangers
I asked you for help and you gave me
A doctor with cold hands
Who spread my legs and stared at me
Just like my father.
I asked you for protection
And you gave me a social worker.
Do you know what it is like
Ihave more social workers than friends?
I asked you for help
And you forced my mother to choose between us.
She chose him, of course.

She was scared, she had a lot to lose.

I had a lot to lose too.
The difference is, you never told me how much.
I asked you to put an end to the abuse
You put an end to my whole family.
You took away my nights of hell
And gave me days of hell instead.
You have changed my private nightmare
Into a very public one.

I've been disturbed knowing about crimes such as child abuse and
other heinous crimes against humanity since I joined law school! In law school though I
only learnt how to help your client, and unfortunately most of the times the accused to get
out safely. I don't know if it's just the law school I attended, or in every law school that
there is not a single lesson on being sensitive about such issues! Everything is about the
"law" and the money involved to the lawyers of today! Everything is about technicality,
about the word play and how smart one can be in front of the judge and the court! An
"ethical lawyer" is still an oxymoron. If situation has to improve , we need sensitive
people handling such issues! We need people who feel the pinch! As Pinki Virani has
pointed out in the book that “Two institutions play a very important role in a Childs life
when it comes to sexual abuse: there is protection and there is prosecution. Protection is
the job of the parent. Prosecution is the job of the state,"

Pinki Virani goes on to provide several practical approaches to

tackle the menace. These revolve around the idea that if the perpetrators of CSA are
brought to book, then it could help partly in discouraging such despicable acts in the
future. The approaches include
• Tougher, and clearer laws dealing with CSA – starting with the proper definition,
to increasing the punishment. The book also talks of our legal systems that recognize
child abuse only as rape. The system does not even acknowledge child sexual abuse in
most cases. Just to illustrate this, she quotes a case where a grandfather was acquitted
because the judge ruling over the case claimed that a grandfather "could just not do
something like that". Furthermore, the court asked what modesty a six-year-old could
have to be outraged. Even worse was the example where a mother attempted to save
her adolescent daughter from her husband's molesting. Failing to persuade him, she
and two social workers rescued the child. The court then ruled that the father be not
punished as he was the sole earner in the family and instead recommended that the
social workers be tried for forcibly removing the child.
 • Child-friendly process to deal with the matter (for example, the child not having
to be repeatedly cross-examined and explain the harrowing experience several times,
in graphic detail, to complete strangers).
• Child Protection Units (to counsel the victim of abuse) and Child Protection
Courts (to handle all cases where the victim is a child). I completely agree with the
author regarding the urgent need for the law to be reformed to be more child-friendly.
Child Protection Units and Child Protection Courts are definitely bound to be effective
• But above all, Pinki pins the hope on responsible parenting. This includes
providing an open atmosphere at home so that the child is not hesitant to speak out is
(s)he is abused, and being aware of what the child is up to, where (s)he is and such,
and most importantly, dealing with disclosure appropriately (without blaming the child
for what happened.

Some interesting observations from the book. Virani claims that

while mothers do not shy away from physical or emotional abuse, she has not found a
single case of a mother sexually abusing her own child. Interesting, if true. Another
interesting point is that boys who are sexually abused by older women often do not
perceive it as abuse, but as sexual initiation; the same goes for boys with homosexual
inclinations who are abused by older men. Virani correctly says that there is no point in
calling people survivors of sexual abuse when they themselves do not feel that they were
abused; however just because some people do not take it badly does not mean the next
boy or girl will not be severely affected. And that the consequences can be subtle; a
therapist she interviews says that the number of men who have trouble performing
sexually is growing, and many of these men were sexually abused.

The book alsogives you information about helplines and a list other books to
readon same subject. Quite informative that ways. Pinki Virani has lots of data with her.
Testimonials. Statistics. Anecdotes. News. Data which she very sensitively does not
reduce to impersonal numbers. She brings forth the pain and agony in them. At the same
time, this runs the risk of confused facts. Other than believing Virani words, and even if I
dont mind believing them, we have no way to read the sources she quotes. No references.
No citation. That does not produce good research. Moreover, reading narrations of abuses
after abuses becomes disturbing. It is not only because of the disturbing nature of the
abuse; it is also because the narrations do not lead to new findings or ideas. She does
prove that child sexual abuse, as is commonly thought, is not characteristic of the lower
class. That it is not happening to only girls, nor is it done only by men. However there are
too many of the cases described. It does give you the extant to which the crime is
prevalant, but it also breaks your reading interest. Further, the book suffers from a lack of
clear organization. Virani jumps from one thought to another, and while most of these are
interesting, sometimes one wonders where it is all going. Some of this is perhaps
inevitable given that the stories of children are interspersed with the rest of the text.

I do not recomend you to read this book if you are trying to

recover. It has a lot of good ststistics if that is what you are looking for. I just wished
that Pinki spent more time on the "exiting the survivor cycle, and gave examples of
 how people accomplished that. It's one thing for an Indian to recognize how
traumatic child sexual abuse is, but a lot of survivors are continuing to unconsciously
re-victimize themselves without knowing how to successfully get out and though I
see its appeal and I am sympathetic to the sufferers of sexual abuse, I would not
recommend it as a first choice of comfort and cannot help myself but to compare this
book with “Please Tell!: A Child's Story About Sexual Abuse (Early Steps) Jessie
Ottenweller. It's told in the first person by a little girl who is sexually abused by her
uncle in terms that a young child can understand. It discusses how she is supported
by her family, and how it is seeing a psychologist. It really does a good job of
destigmatizing sexual abuse. It also encourages children who have been (or are
being) abused to keep telling trusted adults about it until someone helps them. In the
back it also provides a fairly long list of people who it is okay to tell.

This is a difficult book to work with, it will change your world forever.
Did I enjoy this book? Absolutely not. Reading it was hell. Do I recommend this book?
Most definitely. Though it was not fun or enjoyable to read by any means, it is almost
necessary.. The perversion of the offenders and the hypocrisy of the silent witnesses in a
number of the cases described by Virani disgusted me. Yet, the book remains a must-read
as one simply cannot deny the existence of the problem. However I would strictly like to
advise the readers that do not leave this book just because you find it too revolting. Try to
understand that CSA is sadly a very widespread problem. It’s everywhere. Educate
yourself, you might just save a child’s life. Moreover, Bitter Chocolate is not child
pornography; Yes, I’ve seen people read this book and chuckle. Don’t insult the suffering
of little children who trust you grownups with their lives and future.

I agree that "Bitter Chocolate" is hard-hitting and at times, you'd

rather just quit reading the book or the extremely graphic descriptions might be just too
much to take. In spite of all this, I still recommend one and all to read this book. For the
simple reason, that unless one reads this book, one will not really grasp the magnitude of
the menace. Read this very courageous book. I would want everyone who reads it to take
the primary message the book gives: shatter the conspiracy of silence. Remember,
children are our future citizens. What kind of country would it be, where a staggering
40% of the girls and 25% of the boys have, at some point of time in the past, been
sexually abused as children? What is a young, hurt, bewildered child to do when parents/
teachers/ guardians let ignorance and superstition and worse not only make them neglect
their duties towards their wards but actively connive at causing them distress as in the
news items cited? Or when they have the misfortune to attend schools where physical
violence, humiliation and rape are probable dangers? What use pretty words and prettier
treaties when the rights they guarantee are never realised?