‘As a child I was sexually abused’, Anoshka Shankar
Legendary sitar player Pandit Ravi Shankar’s daughter Anoshka Shankar who recently received two Grammy Awards on behalf of her father raised a campaign against injustice meted to women following the Delhi gang-rape incident. To end the violence against women all around this Valentine, the 31-year-old sitarist has invited one billion women and those who love them, via the website Change.org, to walk out, "Dance, rise up, and demand".
"The campaign 'One Billion Rising' is a promise that we will rise up with women and men worldwide to say, 'Enough! The violence ends now'," the website said.
Anoshka Shankar revealed that she was also a victim of sexual abused. She said as a child she was sexually and emotionally abused by the man who was trusted by her parents.
"As a child I suffered sexual and emotional abuse for several years at
the hands of a man my parents trusted implicitly. Growing up, like most women I
know, I suffered various forms of groping, touching, verbal abuse and other
things I didn't know how to deal with, I didn't know I could change," said
the Indian composer, now living in London.
"As a woman I find I am frequently living in fear. Afraid to walk alone at
night, afraid to answer a man who asks for the time... and enough is enough. I
am rising, for (the Delhi
rape victim) and women like her. I am rising with the amazing women of my
country. I am rising for the child in me, who I don't think will ever forgive
and recover from what happened to her.
"So, join me, let's rise, let's dance. Dance has the power to heal, to
transform. So let's transform ourselves and this world. Let's rise
together," she added.
