Journey from agony to glory

Tania Singh, the CEO of Make Love Not Scars wrote a book, "Being Reshma", which depicts the inspiring story of Reshma Qureshi, a seventeen-year-old acid attack survivor.

The book is a tale of perseverance and courage, also to underline the fact that acid attack survivors in India are often shamed. In a society obsessed with conventional ideas of beauty and that acid attack survivors are looked down upon.

They receive hostile stares, rude comments and are blamed for their plight. What is even worse is that their scars pose hurdles in their day-to-day lives.

When asked about the book on her, Reshma told The Hans India, "My sister was a victim of domestic violence as her husband was very abusive, we decided to call her back to our home. She has two children one boy and a girl- we admitted the boy in a boarding school for his better future.

But one day, his father took him away from the school without informing us and wasn't allowing the son to meet my sister. Looking at my sister's pain we filled anFIR against her husband.

The case was in favour of her and it was clear that the judgement will be in her side.But on the day of final hearing in the court, when I was going for my examination, a few men sent by my brother-in-law pulled me from my hair and threw acid on my face.

The reason behind this action on me was because I was the youngest one in our family and he knew if I was hit everyone in the family will be emotionally traumatised. And it happened that way, everyone was emotionally broken seeing my condition. "

She further adds, "When I was attacked, there were many people in the street who would have helped me to reach to the hospital, but none came forward.

They were just mute spectators to my agony and shrieks. Finally, when I was taken to a nearby hospital, the doctor refused me to check until a FIR was registered. For seven hours the acid was in my face burning me inside-out.

After seven hours when the treatment started my condition had deteriorated. I was taken to Mumbai from Itawa, and there my treatment started. I didn't know what happened during the treatment, I wasn't able to sense anything as I was too traumatised to lose my face and beauty."

"In today's world facial beauty is very important although beauty comes from inside. In the beginning, I didn't know what to do with this face, I was clueless. Finding no other way to survive, I stopped my education, I attempted suicide twice, but my father caught me and got emotional.

He explained if the accused person gets out of the cell and does something again to our family what will we do, he explained me to be a pillar of the family. In this whole period, I was supported by my family immensely. And I decided to live and earn fame and success with this face in this life.

After which I started a campaign 'Beauty tips by Reshma' where I told that acid is very easily available in the market and it takes one minute for any criminal to destroy the life of a girl. The campaign was very successful and learning about my story I was called by New York Fashion Week to be a model in their runaway show.

When I walked for them, I felt very honoured and proud to be able to do this in front of dignitaries of film fraternity as there were many women who hid their faces and stay in their homes," Reshma said.

Expressing her agony, she says "Although a lot has changed now, recently, Deepika's film on Chappackwas made on an acid attack victim and there are many things happening to support us, yet we have to cover our face and walk because people asks us what happened and who will marry us now. Basic awareness in the society is lacking.

Marriage is not the ultimate thing but there are people who question us if our lives have become lifeless, they don't motivate instead they demotivate us. I didn't give much ear to what people were saying as I live for myself.

To my great help I met Ria Sharma, who runs an NGO, Make love not scars, she helped me and supported me to live saying 'we are with you'. Today, I go to places and walk in many fashion shows, all the time I seem to be the highlighted one amongst all the models, so I feel good to be a survivor who has been chosen to be a model.

I didn't realise how and when my life changed, now my book 'Being Reshma' came in the market which interprets my life journey since my childhood which is getting great response from the readers.

Whenever I go to promotions, I say if you read my book my request is to please make sure the acids are banned from the market, selling acid is not that important as it destroys lives. Why someone's anger is controlled only by throwing acid, there can be other ways also? Acid on skin is very painful, it takes 18 hours in operation."

When asked why acid attacks happen only in India, she said that it's because in India we can find harmful things very easily. Even if the buyer doesn't have enough money to buy acid, the shopkeeper will hand him the bottle but to buy a first-aid medicine for acid-attack victims the chemists asks to first get prescription from the doctor.

Being Reshma goes beyond the literal scars and talks about the psychological scars that female victims have to endure thanks to the rigid mentality of the people around them.

In the end, Being Reshma isn't only an account of an acid attack survivor's harrowing road to recovery, it is also about the fight against any and all kinds of oppression.

Not everyone gets such encouragement as Reshma got while she was going through depression, her parents used to lock all the things which would help in committing suicides, she was in a phase where she wanted to end her life and that was the time when she met Ria.

Ria Sharma started her NGO, make love not scars at a very young age. She crowd-funded lot of her operations and encouraged her. The NGO is crowd funded internationally and has helped a lot of attack victims. She later added saying, "Today everyone is discussing on acid attack, yet it hasn't been controlled, we never know when someone is attacked on some road."