New Delhi:
As I first read the email sent by the young woman journalist to Shoma Chaudhury, each detail stood out starkly, every word a blow to a carefully constructed image of a well-respected and brilliant Editor, a man known for his championing of the feminist cause, yet at one line, I paused, the words blurring, as my eyes filled. Not the line describing her own alleged physical violation but these words "To add to this (the rape), I had to process the fact that it was Tarun who molested me - my father's ex-colleague and friend, my friend's dad, and someone I had so deeply respected and admired for so many years."
Sexual assault of any woman is heinous, a crime of the worst possible nature but the charge that this was done by a father of daughters to a friend of his daughter's is a depravity which makes this just so much worse. For me, a father of daughters is a man with the rare privilege of being able to enter a world a man with sons can never understand. A world where a father of daughters realizes just how degrading the male gaze can be, a world where you finally question the privileges you always accepted unquestioningly because you are a man, a world where you are suddenly extra protective of your daughter compared to your son because you know all too well some men can be beasts. You join a club where you are now part of the our 'us' vs the other 'them'.
This leitmotif is mentioned again and again by the young woman in her emails. In her rebuttal to Tarun Tejpal's first email implying a 'misunderstanding' she says "I invoked every single person and principle that was important to us - your daughter...my father... the fact that you were my employer, to make you stop. You refused to listen...We have often spoken of "what turns men into beasts" at Tehelka edit meetings, you yourself have commissioned several stories on this. It is this - not being able to take no for an answer." With no thought of the familial ties that bind us all. Tarun Tejpal contests this version, his claim is that it was ' consensual'.
At the other end of the spectrum, we know the horror stories of fathers who rape their own daughters, crimes which have been kept silent for far too long. We turn away from them because they seem abominations unacceptable to the purity of the father daughter relationships we see every day around us, in families we know. We turn away from the beasts that exist, this silence is what lets it continue. In this as well, there are different shades of grey. Woody Allen married his adopted daughter, a young woman he brought up as a little girl with Mia Farrow but his genius excused him, objections were seen as outdated, prudish. Tarun's case is nothing like theirs, he seems to be a very loving father to his own daughters. Tellingly, he is upset that the journalist told his daughter of what had happened, lashing out at her, saying you know nothing of a parent child relationship.
Daughters believe their fathers can do no wrong, he is their hero. Today as well, his daughters are by his side as he fights his legal battle in Goa. That is their choice which must be respected and my heart goes out to them, at the price they are paying for something that is no fault of theirs.
Being a father of daughters puts you on what can be an impossibly high pedestal, a covenant between you and them, a sacred trust and when that is broken it extends beyond your own relationships to a questioning of the larger side you've let down. So while the case in Goa may centre around legal definitions of rape and consent, a moral crime has been committed for which the verdict is already out, of crossing a line from being a father figure, a mentor , to a man just like the rest of them, too often a predator.
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