Stand Up, Speak Up!

As the #metoo movement gains momentum, and heroes become monsters, Divya Desa, the woman at the centre of our very own shake-up at Pune's high spirits cafe, leads the charge and says: it’s never too late to make your voice heard.

In October, a little after The New York Times exposition of Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein exploded across the Internet and set in motion a worldwide outpouring of women (and men) detailing their experiences of sexual harassment, I was at the centre of a smaller, but no less damning revolution in this part of the woods. After years of struggling to come to terms with the abuse I endured at my first full-time job as a public relations executive and personal assistant at The High Spirits Cafe, a well-loved Pune party haunt, I finally went public with it.

The reactions to my story were largely positive. I was met with a wave of support from close friends, people I hadn’t spoken to in years… even strangers over social media, the phone and in person. It definitely helped me brace for the negative reactions, a common refrain of which was, “Why are you speaking up now, after so many years? Why did you keep quiet for so long?” I wish there was a succinct, easy way to answer these questions, but there isn’t. Still, I’m going to try.

It’s important to remember that as with everything else, so too with harassment and abuse: every victim I reacts in their own way. There are several factors that affect the way we process and acknowledge experience, especially trauma—from conditioning, to socio-economic status, to exposure, to emotional intelligence, to personality type, to how supported and comfortable we feel in the world. Questioning why someone reacted to abuse in a certain way and not the other is about as meaningful as asking someone why they love alt-rock and not death metal, or why they speak Hindustani and not Bambaiya.