by Bidya
Two heaping spoonfuls of powdered milk, 3 spoons of sugar, simmer till it foams up like your desire for a free life. Measure the tea leaves following your love for the person you’re making the tea for. Simmer till it turns the color of the inside of your lover’s wrist. Always serve in two cups. Heartbreak cures demand company. It will not work if you have tea in solidarity. You must have it with a friend.
I have made many cups of heartbreak tea, I am somewhat of an expert in it. That is to say, I have had my heart broken many times—by my mother, by my friends, by my lovers. It has always ended with me making tea and finding refuge in my sister’s room.
The first time I realized I was glossing over the pain with tea, I was 21. I had just fallen in love with this gorgeous man. I was going to write him a letter but I did not have any envelopes. So, off I went, trying to find the best brown paper envelopes money could buy so I could put my heart in the post box. It was during lockdown, you see, all the shops were closed. I had to walk to a different neighborhood to buy them. The call to prayer had sounded a few minutes before I got there and the only stationary shop owner was off to the mosque. It was a blazing summer afternoon. I was going to have to wait in the sun. Just then, I saw a friend, one I had not been in touch with for some time. He told me he lives close by and I can go and wait at his place for a while — my savior in camo shorts! I went with him to his place, he had cats, they were lovely. I hadn’t even noticed no one else was home when the door closed behind me. He offered to make me some noodles, I was hungry from all the walking, I said I would love that. He secured a knife to cut bell peppers with. The same knife that he used to hold me down while he removed my clothes so I wouldn’t thrash around. He pulled out a pot from the cabinet to boil the noodles in, the same pot he smashed against my skull to keep me still. I let him do it. When he was done, he thought I had liked it, that I had changed my mind about not wanting it. I agreed. I told him, “Of course I liked it. I would like to do it some other time again. But now I was really getting late, I must be on my way”, all the while keeping an eye on the knife by his knee. I got out. I went home and called the man I loved. I told him what happened. I told him, “he was so much bigger than me, heavier than me, I could not push him off even if I wanted to.” He seemed to agree that it was terrible what happened to me, too terrible even, he couldn’t be with someone who had gone through something so terrible. He must leave me. It was a good thing, I realized, that I never ended up buying those envelopes.
Then, I went into my kitchen and made tea.
When the entire country erupted with rage during the anti-rape protests, I was busy throwing up in my bathroom. I was afraid I was pregnant. I did not know for certain. I had gained an obscene amount of weight. I had missed a period. Everything pointed towards pregnancy—the rape pregnancy. Now, looking back, I know I should’ve taken a pregnancy test. In the moment, in my desperation, I called the boy I had loved. He was the only person I had told about it. I needed to hear someone say I wasn’t at fault, it wasn’t my mistake. There was nothing I could’ve done to prevent it. I did not get that comfort. I got shunned for ever going to his house — what kind of girl does that? I must have been asking for it. Yet, all I could think of was his unyielding weight on top of me and the knife on my ribs. I had never hated myself more for being skinny, for being weak, for being human. For having flesh, for having breasts, for having a vagina. For having skin. And eyes. And hair. For having any attribute that makes a human attractive to another. I wanted to be dust. I wanted to be the wind. I wanted to be a tree.
Years later, I fell in love again. With a girl this time. I told her I did not like being pushed down into the mattress, it reminded me of vile torturous things. That she could never do that to me. And with my shattered heart preserved in Resin, I believed her when she said that she never would. But, Resin can also break. So can people’s words. She pushed me down into the mattress so many times, while I screamed, cried, passed out. That year, I made lots of tea. Every day was a heartbreak. Every night a new cup of tea. I tried telling her why it hurt me, why I couldn’t take it anymore. She dutifully let me know that since I had not taken action against my rapist, I cannot keep being haunted by the rape. That it was unjust for me to punish her for the rapist’s crimes.
My identity was forever marred by one incident that I did not even tell everyone. Deep within, I was festering. Something was eating away at my heart. I was nothing but a poor girl pinned down beneath someone’s weight. I was desperate to be more. Yet I was nothing.
In the years following, I worked on loving myself and not loving anybody else. It was too much. The trust, the faith, the touching. I became a very lonely creature. But deep down I was a girl of love. I was not made to survive alone, I was made to thrive in love. I now know that despite it all, I want to remain soft. That one incident has dictated my relationship with others for years. I looked at everyone with a smidge of skepticism.
With time, I recovered. What I did not recover from was the betrayal of my friends. My friends had harbored these perpetrators for so long. They had believed these people more than they believed me. The rapist was my friend too. Years in therapy, thousands upon thousands spent on PTSD medication and it still shatters me to pieces that he was my friend. Friendship, we take the word so lightly. But, perhaps, that is the only word that should carry more weight than love. Where would we be if not for friends? To my core, I am a lover. I love everything with a ferocity people only reserve for battles. I realize what happened to me one afternoon, kept happening to me every day after. I kept reliving the same afternoon for ages. I loved the girl I was before, I love the girl I am today, I fail to love the girl I was in between, though she needs it the most. I have become a living breathing paradox. Yearning for community and rehabilitation and failing to let go of the past.
People tell me I am strong. But this strength came at a cost — isolation and loneliness. Because of this strength, I did not receive the care I was entitled to. Is my rehabilitation my responsibility alone? I know so many women who have been through similar things. Are all of us solely responsible for our own recovery? Where is community care when it comes to us? Just because the story of my rape did not make national news, just because I did not press charges, should I have to carry this burden alone?
No amount of tea heals you from that. That is my current challenge in my kitchen witchery. I wish to brew a tea someday that scorches you clean of all the bad memories, bad touches, and worse comments that come after. If you know that recipe, send it my way.
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This piece is part of Political & Personal: An Anthology of Gender & Sexuality Issues in Bangladesh, a weekly series by the Bangladesh Feminist Archives. To read all contributions and view submission guidelines, click here.
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