Unbreakable The Rana Ayyub Story

Her Past Life Faded Away. Memories of Herself Were Crushed Under the Weight of Daily Danger, Her Lifes Mission Distilled to Unearthing the Truth.

- Emilie Gambade

She’s been SLUT-SHAMED, a subject of vitriolic hate, threatened with gang-rape, had her face digitally added to a porn video shared on social media, is regularly VICIOUSLY TROLLED AND ABUSED ON TWITTER, and has her every move and post scrutinised and attacked to the point that the united nations stepped in to demand that India's prime minister, Narendra Modi, ensures her safety. RANA AYYUB is a 35-year-old investigative journalist in the real India of today, and she is UNBREAKABLE

May 1983

The doctor walks towards a worried couple and, without much hesitation, gives his diagnosis: ‘Look, she’s not going to survive; why don’t you guys just wait here, it’s going to be a long journey if you go back home by train now.’ He is referring to their newborn, Rana (the name means ‘eye-catching’ in Arabic and is a royal name in India, mainly attributed to males). She barely weighs one kilo and has, as the doctor says, a very low chance of survival. It’s more practical for the parents to wait at the hospital where the baby will die peacefully than to head home with her.

But the newborn doesn’t die and, after two weeks, the young couple hops on the train and takes Rana back home. The journey was indeed long, but the doctor was wrong.

It wouldn’t be Rana’s last fight for survival: at age five, she contracts polio and her left hand and right leg stop moving (she would eventually recover). Four years later, the 1992 riots explode in what was then called Bombay, and violence and fear grip the city. To avoid abduction and rape, Rana and her sister move in with a neighbour and pretend to be Hindu girls (their family is secular Muslim). They are separated from their parents with no communication for more than a month.