In a small rented room in Uttar Pradesh, seven-year-old Dolly would draw pictures of houses with a pencil on paper. She would color them with love and write "Dolly's House." Her dream was to study, get a job, earn money, and build her own house.

When a hot cappuccino was placed in front of me at SheroesCafe in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, the 24-year-old Dolly sat silently for about 20 seconds before narrating her childhood dream to me. While many of her friends dreamed of becoming doctors, engineers, or pilots in their childhood, Dolly just wanted to build her own house.

In February, Agra doesn't experience much heat or cold. It is said that Agra is famous for three things - the Taj Mahal, the Panchi Petha sweet, and the mental asylum. The Taj Mahal is extraordinarily beautiful. I don't particularly like Panchi Petha. And I haven't had a chance to visit the mental asylum yet.

I had heard about Sheroes Hangout Cafe, where acid attack survivors are employed. This initiative was undertaken by the Chhanv Foundation. The founder of the Chhanv Foundation is Laxmi Agrawal, who is herself a survivor. A Bollywood biopic titled "Chhapaak" was made based on her life story.

I took an auto from Kamlanagar in Agra, my mind filled with thoughts about how they continue their lives after such a traumatic experience. I wondered how much pain that moment of the acid attack must have caused them when they looked at their faces. With a heavy heart, I reached Sheroes. Sheroes’ Hangout began out of a crowdfunding initiative in 2014. The café works with a donation system that uses a ‘pay as you wish’ policy. What is amazing is not just the confident stride and dignity that the survivors have when they are taking orders or serving food, but the positive fallouts in their lives beyond. Some foreign tourists were watching a documentary about the survivors, visibly moved by the horrific incidents being narrated.

There, I could not meet Laxmi but encountered many smiles, smiles that are priceless, belonging to those who are no longer afraid to dream and want to live life to the fullest while inspiring others. One of them was 24-year-old Dolly Shreevastav. Her dream remains the same - to build her own small house.

India is not considered a safe place for girls. Dolly’s mother was constantly worried about her safety. Dolly was intelligent, outspoken, cheerful, extroverted, and loved by all her friends. But one horrific day changed the course of Dolly's life forever. There was a 35-year-old man who used to harass Dolly. On her way to and from school, he would pull her hair, grab her hand, snatch her books and notebooks, and threaten her, saying, "Let’s go out, or I won't return your things." This went on for a long time. Dolly told her mother everything.

Dolly's mother didn't stay quiet. She confronted the man, scolded him, and warned him that if he continued harassing her daughter, she would file a police complaint. She thought that after this warning, he would stop bothering her daughter, and Dolly would be safe and able to focus on her studies.

In July, the only options were to bear the heat or face the hot air from the fan. It was only after evening that Dolly felt the fan's cool breeze.That evening remains etched in Dolly's memory - the calmness before the horrific moment that would change her life forever.

Her brothers and sisters were playing carrom board. Dolly was sitting on a cot near the window, doing her homework.

Suddenly, she heard someone at the door. When she went to check, she was shocked to see the man who had been harassing her. Dolly was usually alone with her siblings in the evenings. Suddenly, she felt a burning sensation on her face, as if fire had slapped her. After that, she couldn't think or feel anything except the excruciating pain of the acid burn. She collapsed on the floor.

Even a mother's loving shield couldn't protect the innocent girl from the demon's wrath.

After that, Dolly only remembers the days and nights spent in agonizing pain from the acid burns during that scorching July in the hospital bed. She would drift in and out of consciousness, writhing in pain whenever she regained her senses.

Dolly couldn't speak. Her mother wept incessantly. Tears streamed down Dolly's eyes as she sobbed. I suddenly felt a sense of guilt for making her relive that horrific moment.

Those days and nights spent in the hospital, tossing and turning in pain, flashed before her eyes once more.

However, her mother found solace in one thing - at least Dolly's eyes were saved. Although the doctors couldn't save her face, they managed to save her eyes. Dolly remembers wanting to die during the intense pain. She wondered why she was alive. But her parents kept encouraging her.

After returning from the hospital, Dolly's life was never the same. She became quiet, like a stone. Everything changed along with her face. She stopped going to school and making friends. She would stay locked in her room all the time, questioning life about why this had happened to her. Meanwhile, her tormentor roamed freely, causing Dolly further mental anguish whenever she heard about him.

All mirrors were removed from her home so that she wouldn't have to see her reflection. For seven months, Dolly didn't see her face. But people would stare at her, making her uncomfortable. Even at her sister's wedding, she couldn't participate because people used to get scared to see Dolly. She watched her sister’s wedding from one corner of the terrace and sobbed.

But the truth couldn't be hidden forever. One day, Dolly had to face it. She mustered the courage to look at herself in a steel tray. She doesn't know what emotions overcame her then, but she was disgusted by her reflection. She threw the tray away, screaming, crying, and falling to the ground.

After seeing her own face, Dolly became even more withdrawn and introverted.

Time doesn’t stop for anyone. Time is inexorable, unmoved by human tragedy or triumph. It marches steadfastly onward, indifferent to the joys and sorrows experienced in its wake. For Dolly, though her world shattered into a million shards on that day, the clock kept ticking mercilessly. All her siblings got married, but Dolly's life and time seemed to have frozen. Everyone was by her side, but her daily routine remained the same. She couldn't live her life openly with her disfigured face and shattered confidence until her tormentor was finally sentenced to life imprisonment in 2016. Only then did hope for living rekindle within Dolly.

Dolly says, “Some vengeances are inevitable.” Some acts of vengeance cut deeper than the personal - they tend to the spiritual wound of society itself. They are inevitable, and inescapable, for without them, all concepts of right and wrong become meaningless. For Dolly, her tormentor's punishment was not an optional craving, but an obligatory reckoning - one that allowed her tortured soul to finally experience the glimmers of healing. Until the perpetrator is punished, the victim's mental state remains moribund. No words can describe the trauma of seeing the perpetrator roaming freely while the victim suffers every moment.

Dolly says, "When he was sentenced, I no longer wanted to die. I felt like living again. My mind became peaceful. Although my burnt face couldn't be the same, my mind found peace after years." For years, Dolly existed in a state of perpetual anguish, her inner light slowly being smothered by the traumatic violation she endured. Each day was likely a battle against despair so all-consuming that the very notion of going on seemed inconceivable. In that long, torturous darkness, the idea of simply ceasing to exist may have felt like the only merciful release. But then came the sentencing - a pivotal moment where the scales of justice, however belatedly, finally tipped towards moral rectification. In that decisive act of accountability, Dolly found the sustenance to let a long-denied dream blossom within her once more: the dream to live. The human desire for life, so rudely and cruelly stamped out of her, rekindled. Where there was once only darkness, a fragile yet determined flame of hope emerged.

And from that glimmer of hope came the ultimate salve that no atrocity could fully extinguish - inner peace. While the scars on her face would be permanent reminders of unfathomable suffering, Dolly displayed a reservoir of resilience by achieving the harder-won victory of tranquility within. Years of torment could not sabotage her soul's steadfast journey toward healing, renewal, and a reclamation of her right to feel at peace.

Dolly had heard a little about Sheroes Hangout. Her mother wanted her to go out, make friends, work, and live her life. After much persuasion, Dolly agreed to leave home. She visited Sheroes for the first time in 2015 and recalls her experience: "I thought I was the only acid attack victim in the world, that no one else had gone through what I had, and that no one could understand my pain. But after hearing the heart-wrenching stories of the women there, I realized why I had been hiding. We need to fight against this injustice." She had initially gone there with her face covered, but everyone told her, "Why are you hiding your face? This is not your fault. It's the criminals who should hide their faces." Dolly remembers that from that day on, she never hid her face again.

Dolly started working at the cafe, although not many people visited back then. Discrimination exists everywhere, but as she says, "It's alright, people may be afraid to look at us. We can't do much about it."

Dolly began smiling again like before. For the first time, she earned money by working. She made new friends who had gone through similar experiences.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Dolly also found her life partner while engaged in charitable work. "We used to distribute food, and had created groups on social media. I fell in love with him during that work," she shyly shared. His selfless love and acceptance made her realize that life could be truly beautiful. Dolly says, "I turned 24 from the age of 13. With treatment, my wounds healed to some extent. Although my facial features were distorted, I was still the same Dolly who had become a living corpse for some time. But the earlier Dolly within me was lost somewhere. With everyone's encouragement, support, and love, and after her tormentor was punished, Dolly was revived.

Dolly, who once wished to die every moment of her teenage years after the acid attack is now teaching others how to live. She is actively engaged in her work, and her courage and zest for life are inspiring others. In our society, after an acid attack, the victim is so ostracized that it's as if she doesn't belong to this society at all. She can't get a job so that those with beautiful faces don't feel disgusted looking at her. There are so many victims like this at Sheroes itself, who lost their jobs after acid attacks. But such places give women like Dolly a space to live as themselves. Society constantly wishes to break and bind women, so it directly attacks their character or appearance. But with unflinching self-belief and family support, one day the light outside will surely be visible. The desire to live resurfaces. Love happens.

Too often, human beings can embody the stagnant stasis of a well - allowing fears, setbacks, and even tragedies to dam their flow, leaving them stuck in an eddy of despair. Dolly's acid assault could have been such an immense rock crushing her spirit, leaving her trapped in a pool of bitterness and resignation.

But through her defiant words, Dolly exhorts others to have the unbridled spirit of a waterfall - a mighty, persistent force that muscles through even the most formidable of obstacles in its path. For Dolly grasps an elemental truth - that life itself is an eternal river, a current journey over which we have the choice to surrender and be shaped by its twists and turns, or to resist and be dragged under. Her words do not discount the depth of suffering but rather embrace it as part of the inevitable rushes and eddies that shape existence.

Even after hearing Dolly's harrowing story of trauma and resilience, there is a bittersweetness in knowing her childhood dreams of academic achievement could not be fully realized. One can't help but feel a tinge of sadness that such horrific violence prematurely closed certain doors for her.

And yet, Dolly's gentle defiance and refocusing of her passions towards creativity and self-expression is utterly inspiring. By declaring her desires to sing, dance, and make others smile, she reclaims her narrative from one of victimhood to a bold affirmation of her multitudes. Her candid admission that studying simply does not stir her soul is a reminder that surviving trauma is an act of constant self-rediscovery and re-defining one's dreams.

May all your dreams come true. Dolly.

With a heart full of awe after witnessing Dolly's indomitable spirit, I bid her farewell, wishing sincerely that every single one of her dreams would be realized. As I turned to depart Sheroes, Dolly called out, her voice brimming with a profound sense of fulfillment and reignited hope.

"Didi, I nearly forgot to tell you - I've managed to purchase a small plot of land," she revealed, her eyes sparkling with the kind of radiant joy that can only emerge from the depths of unfathomable darkness. "Everything is gradually aligning, piece by piece, and I will build my own house!"

In that electrifying moment, I could feel the atmospheric shift as Dolly's soul rejoiced in vocalizing this monumental first step towards her long-deferred dream. The brilliant gleam in her eyes transcended mere happiness - it shone with the blinding luminance of invaluable wisdom earned, by a human being who has stared into the abyss and emerged more dazzlingly radiant than ever before.

I said, "You will build it. "

(In South Asia, the highest number of acid attack cases is reported from Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, there were 83 acid attacks across India in 2011. This rose to 249 in 2019 but fell to 176 in 2021. West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh record the highest numbers of acid attacks every year.)

 
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