The next day, I learned she’d been sent back to their village. I kept checking in. Eventually, I got her on the phone and asked gently, “Does he still raise his hand on you?” Expecting either a yes or unfortunately no, I was shocked to hear what she said. She uttered an emphatic- ‘Katai nahi Didi’ (No, never! Didi). Implying  that ‘what was I even saying?’, a complete denial! like she had never come to my place all shattered and fearful of him, for her life!

The denial felt like a betrayal that left me numb. A betrayal of truth

I had just moved back to India from the US and there were a lot of adjustments I was going through, but this one left me utterly numb. I had definitely known this exists- that domestic violence victims ignore or hide the violence, and usually out of accepting it as a part of married life, something that husbands do when irked! But having encountered it first hand -I could not find my bearings for a while. 

Which is what birthed this series- Stop (Hiding) Domestic Violence, showcasing how women hide the injuries inflicted by Domestic Violence under the guise of ‘being married to it’. The campaign is a combination of 12 photographs (scroll below), which come in a pair. Each pair showing the facade and the face behind, the make up and the injury, the blow covered by a marriage vow. 

I have tried to show ‘physically’ how the wounds of violence are stealthily and perfectly masked by ‘marriage symbols’ – the bangle, the bindi, the necklace. To ‘metaphorically’ mean how domestic violence is as institutionalised as marriage is!

The beauty and the wound, how they are ‘seamless’, so the scars are ‘seen less’.

The campaign not only asks people to Stop Domestic Violence,instead is a scream and a beg to the victims, to Stop (hiding) Domestic Violence. Only when the victims come forward, or society enables them to, can the violence end. 

Only when it is seen, can it be seen.