Hello Elephant!, stay.
by Katyayini Pant
‘All you’ll get is a cynical sa sorry!’
‘So, what should I do?’
‘Keep calm and carry on?’
Keep calm and carry on. Keep calm and carry on. I think of this obsessively. Obsessively enough to render me rather dysfunctional. What is it that we should do? What is it that doing, of the act of calling out opens up for people? I was sexually assaulted at the age of 21 and it took me the better half of two years to arrive at this conclusion. But it hasn’t concluded, has it? I don’t think it has. I think it has only just begun.
The protagonist, the narrator of the assault, her assault, was violated at the age of 25. It took the woman 16 years, 16 fucking years to talk of it. When I sit there, I think about a lot of things. I think about what’s the point? Why? Why? Why? But each day, there is a reason. When I sit with 16 womxn on a zoom call for hours together, I try and listen to them. They are speaking to me but they are primarily speaking to themselves, their own characters. When I first met Kattu, not when I was trying to sell her! But when I first met her, the one word I said and I remember it distinctly, was — triggered.
It was the feeling that rose from the pit of my stomach and popped out of my tongue. I didn’t wish to speak of it but there it was, standing naked. If only I could drape it with a cloth and hide it from everyone! But I couldn’t. More so, I didn’t want to. The space accepted my vulnerability, probed into it and it was my turn to let go.
Allegedly is therapy, it is what became of me, when I listened and responded, understanding, that while my experience is hurtful and unique to me, it isn’t novel. There is comfort in looking and speaking from characters made of grief, anger, aspirations and a cup of chai-biscuit before the run through! If I were to give credit to a moment in time, it is the one in which the elephant in my room sneakily ran across me and into the zoom screen. It was cuddled by everybody and even though it did, eventually, come back to me — we could now meet eyes.
And for that, I’m ever grateful.
Thank you, team. I love you.
Documenting and archiving the journey that the play has taken since 2018, the conversations and people that it has been a part of, the questions it has raised and continues to try finding answers to! If you have watched the play and have something to say/write/sing to us and something to add to this blog’s journey, reach out at Khoyepaaye@gmail.com. More writings coming soon, keep in touch!
