People think it's great to have my life. I am the youngest of three siblings and I belong to an upper-middle class family. It goes without saying that I'm pampered and I get whatever I want. True. But I have also received a lot of things that I do not want and I cannot ever talk about it. My childhood days were wonderful, but the nights were tormenting and uncomfortable. The memories have left a deep scar on me and I still don't know how to deal with it. For the longest time in my infant days, I used to sleep along with my mom and dad, and my siblings used to sleep in another room. I remember I  was in second or third grade when I found out something about my parents.

Parents sometimes underestimate their children and I was a victim of that. They must've thought that I was fast asleep every night but I was actually too nervous to wake up in the middle of the sounds I heard.

Dad and I used to go to bed before my mom and my siblings. Mom used to be busy with her daily chores and my siblings used to be busy with their school activities. What I realized was when I used to fall asleep, my dad used to push me aside to do things to my mom every day. Every single day. I had no idea what it was. All I could think of was how my mom sounded miserable. I always felt he was harming her and she was in pain, which was a fact that I got to know later.

I used to feel uncomfortable, and it was no ordinary discomfort. I hated my father. Gradually, I threw tantrums.

I pretended to be sick in the middle of the night, I told them I was scared, I stayed awake stubbornly and told them I wasn't sleepy at all. I did everything I could to keep my father away from mom. Some days I won. Most days were "those nights" again. I struggled this way for three years gathering whatever success I could.

The worst part was how I couldn't talk about it with anybody. My siblings are much older than I am and I could never really get along with them very well. Friends and teachers were out of the question. Who else was I supposed to talk to? The maid? The driver? Even the slightest hint in that direction would earn me a "Little kids don't talk that way". I was all on my own. Then came a time when I grew too big, both for the bed and as a problem.

I was in the seventh standard when I was sent permanently to my older siblings' room. There were several walls between us now, but my mind was always in my parents' bedroom, haunted for reassurance of mom's safety. As I grew up, I realized that the activity known as "sex" was a normal part of marriage. I had to acknowledge that it was all a regular thing and nothing out of the ordinary. But the first-hand information that I had kept resurfacing in my mind. For a long time I thought -

"If this is what marriage has in store, I don't want it at all."

Sometimes, I still do. A few months back, I was having a conversation with my sister. We were both worried about my mother. Of late, my father wasn't giving her enough time. In the course of that conversation, my sibling disclosed something to me. When I was not yet born, our family used to live with my grand parents. Those were the days when dad used to come home drunk almost every night and used to force my mom into having sex with him. It did not seem to matter to him that she wasn't willing. He had no care for how she was feeling. All he wanted was to satisfy his desires. She also told me that my mother used to end up crying but all in all she was just helpless... I understood. I knew her helplessness. I had felt it. I had seen it.

As a family, we have come a long way from there. Now, it is all in the past. But sooner or later, my father is going to ask me to get married. I don't know how I would ever respond to him then. You see, I know everything sounds great on a sheet of paper. But I've seen it between the sheets. I know the fine print and I'm still not fine with it. What I saw in my childhood has given me the phobia, phobia of getting married.   

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