A young writer from Mavelikkara of Alappuzha district, Vanaja Vasudev, posted on her Facebook page, that she enjoyed looking at handsome men, whom she saw on the streets or in other public places.
She even said that she sometimes felt good when some men looked at her. On August 20, she posted a long reply to these abusive messages online that went viral with even filmmaker Aashiq Abu and Kozhikode District Collector Prasanth Nair sharing it.
From where should I begin? I was an introvert, a quiet girl who always walked with her eyes to the ground. I did not spoke to anyone, walked alone always, I was scared of everything. In childhood my dreams were about having a full stomach and wearing good clothes. My father died when I was in Class 5. My mother struggled to make up for his absence. At the time, I hated everything around me, and our relatives abandoned us.
Mother fed me and my brother by starving herself. The loneliness made my mother short tempered. She had hit me with sticks until they broke and I did not understand why I was beaten. At night, when she thought I was asleep, she would come near me and cry, softly touching the welts on my body. I used to cry all night those days. Early morning I would go to the neighbouring houses to sell milk. Through the windows, I saw children of my age sleeping in their rooms.
We sold eggs also to make living, but neither I nor my brother had the fortune of tasting it. We would wait for the day our mother got her pension, when she bought good food for us.
