All of these strike a bitter and personal note with me. As an educated young woman from a middle-class Brahmin family, my parents did the best they could to give me a sheltered and comfortable childhood. Yet, my memories of that childhood are marred with incredibly painful and traumatising incidents of being repeatedly and violently raped. My story is neither unique, nor uncommon.

I had a normal, almost mundane childhood, until I was seven or eight. A close family friend, who often looked after my brother and I, raped me brutally the first time he was alone with me. Over the following five years or so, he continued to rape me repeatedly, at every opportunity he had. This brings me to those trite arguments as to why rapes happen. I was hardly a woman dressed inappropriately; I wasn’t even a woman at the time. So-called Western values had next to no place in my conservative family, or in their chosen circle of friends. My abuser certainly wasn’t of questionable moral character (outwardly), in fact, he went out of his way to be charitable, god-fearing and generous. Neither was he powerful and beyond the law. So why wasn’t he brought to justice?