Bhavnani lived for 13 years in the US, before moving back to Mumbai.
AB Wire
NEW DELHI: Renowned Bollywood hairstylist and former Bigg Boss 6 reality TV contestant Sapna Bhavnani has revealed that she was gang raped at the age of 24, in Chicago, by a group of men on a Christmas eve while on her way home from a bar.
Bhavnani, now 44 years old and based in Mumbai, lived for 13 years in the US from 1989 till 2002, after the death of her father. She graduated with a double major in Marketing and Communication and a minor in Public Speaking from Chicago’s Barat College.
Bhavnani made the startling disclosure which has haunted her for two decades in an interview to Humans of Bombay, a Facebook page which posts pictures of people with their life’s story, taking inspiration from Brandon Stranton’s page Humans of New York. Her post has received more than 64,000 likes and more than 6,000 shares since it was uploaded Wednesday night.
Bhavnani, who also acted as the character ‘Nina’ in the Bollywood film ‘Payaar Ke Side Effects’, disclosed on the FB page the angst of growing up with a different attitude in Mumbai, her father’s death, the gang rape, and how she faced disappointment and abuse in her marriage. But throughout her ordeals, she dealt courageously with life and what it threw at her.
“When I was 14, I used to talk to boys; drive motor cycles, smoke cigarettes and people in Bandra would often call me a whore because of those things. I never understood the term back then, but sure if doing all those things made me a whore– I’d take it gladly. After my father’s death, I moved to Chicago where there were so many like me and it gave me the freedom to get inked, experiment with my hair and just be myself. One Christmas Eve in Chicago, I walked out of a bar alone late at night in a short dress and red lipstick. I was 24 and had been drinking, when from a dumpster a group of guys walked upto me and put a gun to my head asking me to give them blow jobs, eventually leading to gang rape. I remember walking home, showering and pushing this incident to the back of my mind for years and never letting it break my spirit – I still wear short dresses and the brightest red on my lips.
“In years to come, I got married to my high school sweetheart, faced domestic violence and walked out of the marriage wondering how this could happen to ME, a feminist? It’s because sometimes there are things that are beyond your control. We live in a world where everyone stresses the importance of voicing yourself or walking out of tough situations, but I just want to say this— no one wants to be beaten up, get raped or sell their bodies. It took me 20 years to voice my incident, but for me a woman keeping it all within her because she has no other choice isn’t a sign of weakness – it’s a mark of strength and something we need to start respecting.”
Bhavnani, who stands out in a crowd with her zany looking tattoos and colored spiky hair, got noticed for her spunky attitude on the Bigg Boss show, when she dared to stand up to host Salman Khan, voicing her displeasure over issues she did not agree with.
In an interview to NDTV, on Thursday, Bhavnani revealed that she had wanted to disclose the gang rape for a long time, to a wider audience. She participated in the play Nirbhaya by Yael Garber, in which she was one of the women who recounted her ordeal onstage, but she found it to be too niche an audience.
“Last year, I quit the play. Reliving the process every day onstage was not healing at all. And it was making me more a victim of my circumstance. It didn’t show me as who I am. Not as the woman I am today. Then, I did a show on Doordarshan because I felt to tell the story in Hindi would speak to the people I wanted it to speak to. And it really did. In villages where I work (she helps set up nursery schools and women’s centers) people had seen the show. They would come up to me and tell me this”, she told NDTV.
When asked if it is “difficult sharing things so personal and so painful with people who are strangers,” Bhavnani responded: “I’ve been battling this for the longest time. Should I? Should I not? The more I have been watching the media, I knew the minute I came out with the story that I would be put on a pedestal and called a hero. And that’s not what I wanted because I don’t want to be a hero because something awful happened to me. So I thought let me start working on the grassroots level. And today I respect myself. I’ve made a difference. Today if I’m on a pedestal, I’ve actually earned it, beyond what happened to me. I’m tired of this definition as either victim or survivor. I’m neither. I’m me. Both terms have connotations. One means bechari, the other is often seen as just angry. I’m none of those. I’m just me. Always have been. I made sure I mentioned the lipstick, the short dress and the drunkenness (in my blog) because people tend to believe that if you did that, you deserve it. I wanted to make sure I said it. I still wear lipstick and short dresses, and I still don’t deserve it. It was vital for me to say that.”
Bhavnani also put the focus on the victim, more than the rapists, after such incidents are reported.
“…Everyone says when something awful happens, “Let’s kill the rapists”. Nobody wants to talk about what we are doing for the survivors, how to integrate them back into normal life. And my goal in life is dedicated to that: I don’t care about the rapist. How do I help the survivor be ok without judgement?” she said, adding: I’ve never said this before, but I’m saying it now: today, if I had to meet my perpetrators, I have no anger towards them at all. I don’t want to hang them. I have forgiven them. And if I can forgive this, the trolls can troll me, it won’t matter. Healing begins when you let go of the anger. I don’t want to chop their dicks off. If I met them, I would just say “have a nice day” and go about my business.”