9.18 Inside Asia's Largest Anti-Trafficking Institution With Sunitha Krishnan

This episode contains discussions of sexual violence, human trafficking and child abuse. Please listen at your discretion.

Have you ever read a headline, felt the rage to make a difference, but didn’t know where to start?
But an 8-year-old girl acted on it and inspired millions to make a difference, no matter how small

In this episode, Tara sits down with Sunitha Krishnan, founder of Prajwala, Asia's largest institution combating sex trafficking, and Padma Shri recipient, to discuss her memoir I Am What I Am. Over three decades, Sunitha and her team have rescued more than 32,000 survivors and prevented 18,000 children from entering the sex trade. This is the story behind all of that. 

She traces her journey from a 17-year-old with no experience walking into red light areas to building one of the most sophisticated rescue and rehabilitation operations in the world. She talks about what a rescue actually looks like on the ground, speaks candidly about her own experience of gang rape at 15 and why she refused to let it become her entire identity. 

From being beaten up and accused of kidnapping the very children she was rescuing, and when she had to spend 23 days in jail, the stories of her fearlessness are endless.

Tara and Sunitha ji also get into the process of writing the book. She spent 13 days in a hotel room alone with her memories, writing for 14 hours every day. She spent two hours being violently ill as her body released what her mind had been holding for decades, but she didn't leave until every last memory was on the page. 

Courage can also be contagious. Press play and maybe you’ll be inspired to take that step you might’ve been putting off. 

‘Books and Beyond with Bound’ is the podcast where Tara Khandelwal and Michelle D’costa uncover how their books reflect the realities of our lives and society today. Find out what drives India’s finest authors: from personal experiences to jugaad research methods, insecurities to publishing journeys. Created by Bound, a storytelling company that helps you grow through stories. Follow us @boundindia on all social media platforms. 

Transcript

0:01

I can still feel the flesh of her intestine on my hand and I can't forget it. So today we will be tackling a very sensitive topic so please listen at your discretion. Almost 8 million people in India are trapped in human trafficking right now. Girls as young as 12 are sold to sex traffickers in rural communities. A rape happens every four hours in this country and these are not just numbers because behind every single one of them is a real person and a real life and yet most of us look away. So welcome back to Books and Beyond. Today's guest is someone I have genuinely been in awe of since I first came across her work. She is Sunita Krishnan. She is the founder of Prajwala which is Asia's largest institution combating sex trafficking and sex crime. Over three decades they have rescued over 28,900 survivors, rehabilitated 26,900, prevented 18,000 children from entering the sex trade. Just amazing work and she's a Padmashree recipient. She is one of Newsweek's 150 fearless women in the world and we can see why fearless I think is the word to describe her in the memoir I am what I am. She chronicles a story behind all of that and what I loved about this memoir is it is deeply personal. Sometimes it is a bit difficult to read but it is impossible to put down and I love the story behind what the writing is because that's very fascinating and I'm going to come to it. So I'm very excited to have you with us here today. Can't wait to dive in. Hi Tara. It's such a pleasure to be on your podcast and I love the idea of discussing my book for a change. Yes, yes, absolutely. You can sort of slip into the author avatar. So let's start at the beginning, right? The memoir begins with you getting a call at 5am and it's a very disturbing scene. It's about a girl on the railway tracks. She's a four-year-old girl and she's been raped by six men and one of them is her father. It was very difficult to read even speaking about it now. It's very difficult to sort of just wrap your head around this. I had to take a moment to ground myself and you know you work with these kind of children. You see this upfront. So why did you decide to start your memoir with this incident? I think in the beginning I put it chronologically in terms of when it happened and how it happened. But then you know when I was going through everything, my chapters, and I felt that it's very important that I ground where I come from. What is my day-to-day life? You know this is what I see every day in my life and my life is about this. Meaning I don't have another life at all. And I thought it's best introducing where I stand today. That's the world that I'm operating on a minute-to-minute basis. And that is where I have spent the last 35 years. So what better way to introduce my world other than an incident that shook me in multiple ways including questioning my own spiritual journey, my faith, my belief in God. Everything got shattered at that thing because I don't think there is another incident in my life that shook me so badly. Because if you recollect Tara, in this story I had to actually carry that child. And it's more than 29 years since that has happened. I can still feel the flesh of her intestine on my hand and I can't forget it. So I think maybe I just wanted to tell the world that a cruel world like this also exists in this world. And there are few bad people like me who are trying to make that change that. I just can't imagine what you did for that girl. But when you talk about your faith, you've seen so many incidents like this. And actually this wasn't one of my original questions but since you brought it up. What keeps your faith in humanity? Because you are really coming across some of the most cruelest crimes that we as human beings are capable of. And when you say your faith was shattered, what keeps it, what re-ups it? What keeps it going? What makes you get up and fight another day, help another child? What is it about that, that sort of fuels it? You know, as much as I see the worst of humanity, I also see the best. You know, these same children that I'm talking about, who have gone through unimaginable trauma in their life. Each of the child sold into, say, prostitution or a brothel is raped 40 times a day. You know, and that's the world they come from. Absolutely traumatized, broken body, mind and soul completely. But when you make, get their smile back on their face, you know, what can be a bigger miracle than that? And I see it every day. So as many times my faith shatters, so many times is it, it is restored. Because if this, if this child can smile and embrace humanity, embrace the word called this trust and, you know, develop another trust relationship, another with another human being, because she has no reason to, you know, she has been betrayed so many times that there's no reason that she can, she needs to trust, you know, human race completely. But she does. And that to me is the biggest miracle of faith, you know, and, and, and I'm so blessed that I see it every day, you know, and that keeps me going. Absolutely. Before we, you know, get into Prajbala and, you know, the amazing work you've done. I also really like sort of, I like the chronology of the memoir. Sometimes I don't like chronology memos, but I think for this one, to really understand how your journey has catapulted the way it has, the chronology worked. So you said, you know, you were 17 when you did your first rescue, and you had no experience, no connections, no real plans. You were walking around red light area, trying to talk to women there, being ignored by them. And one day, one of the women Lakshmi called you and she said that there's this girl, you know, she wants to get back to her home. You found out where that village was through your father. You arranged for a vehicle to take her back and Lakshmi and some of the other women also helped identify that girl's village. And then, you know, you found out that the parents had passed away and the uncle was a little shady. And the girl was just picked up from a highway. And I'm convinced Tara that you've read my book now. But, but what is it about this first rescue that, you know, has stayed with you? And just tell me a little bit more about how that experience then has led to your other work. I think two, three things, you know, Tara, when you're very young, you judge people too quickly. You know, you listen to all kinds of narratives about people and then you start, you know, building some kind of an opinion about people. So my understanding about women in prostitution was very, I can't say negative, but I never thought they can reach out to any human being. I never thought that they can because, you know, I don't see people with privileges reaching out for any good thing, you know, everybody is like happily sitting in their safe cocoon and being there. So why should a person who's kind of thrown out of the society and is going through so much of stigma and ostracization even bother about another human being? But that is what changed in my first rescue. The women who made me take care of that little one where women were prostituting there. But it was not just that. They not only gave me the information and prodded me to go and do it, but they actually accompanied me and then actually provided me an alibi because I was completely a green horn. I had no clue how to do this. And I was like enacting like, you know, I know everything and I'm doing it. But then, you know, I really got cornered in that village, you know, when the people in the village wanted to know where did I find this girl. And I had actually not applied my mind, you know, in terms of what is the story I have to tell there. And these women like this, they built the story that I rescued the girl and I come from a very privileged class and, you know, I took care of her. And these are all domestic workers working in the same, you know, space. So I saw a gesture of, you know, generosity of spirit. And I think that particular incident changed the way I looked at human beings completely, you know, and became far, far more open in terms of not judging people by what people say, you know, and actually allowing experiences to form the reason to form our opinion about somebody not hearsay. But also, you know, that gave me another insight about my own self, that I'm kind of fit for this work, which is something that I see everything, you know, you want to change the world, you want to do so many things, but sometimes it could be just a fantasy, meaning on the real world, maybe you're just a bloody misfit. You don't, you know, you don't even know how to do it. But then the way I conducted myself, the confidence I displayed, and all of that was, you know, absolute, you know, play acting. But I did give a very good impression that I knew what I was doing. And, you know, that's the first time that I got, you know, an inner validation that, yes, I am meant for this mission. And in time, the course of time, once I gain my skills, I will be better at it. But this was my first start to understand whether I fit in or not, you know, see, these are also litmus tests in your life, and you may think big, but only when you enter and see whether you actually can do it or not, you know, how much of it you're really capable of, you understand. So I think that particular incident would be one of the multiple, you know, factors, which made me choose this as a professional, you know, skilling for myself. And what were the other factors? Because also I read that, you know, you said that you were always on this path anyway, and you would have done this, you know, regardless of what. What were some of the other factors that sort of came together? I think, you know, I would have been in the sector, meaning I would have definitely been in the sector because I think way back in my childhood, I recognized, people around me recognized that I was different, I was not somebody like other children, I didn't play, I think, you know, doing something for somebody else was something like was completely in my DNA. But what should I be doing is something that I explored in my childhood itself. Again, I didn't wait for my schooling to get over or, you know, finish my college and become a professional, I did it as I grew. So I taught dance for mentally retarded children, I ran a school for children in the slum. And then I think the incident that happened when I was 15 and when I got gang raped, that was perhaps my deciding moment on what is the direction that I will go. The sector of social transformation, the development sector is huge and vast, you know, in that what would be my specific vocation, which will be my mission, is something got decided from a lived experience. And that factor was, I would say, the most clear grounding foundation for what my life would be from then on till now. In the book, you speak, you know, about it very candidly, and you say that, you know, because of that one moment, your entire identity sometimes has been reduced to that one moment. And you even said that someone came up to your husband at an event and thanked him for rehabilitating you, which I found very strange. I didn't quite understand what that sentence means either. So how do you sort of, because I get that you would have done this, you know, any way, and how do you fight that stigma that exists, even among people who think they are being supportive? It is, it was, you know, in that particular incident, it was so, so, I don't know, even now, I don't know whether to be amused about it, or it is, we were taken aback, you know, as a lowly kind of gentleman coming in, really giving a big handshake to Raj and saying, you know, thank you for rehabilitating her. So it was like, you know, Raj has like accepted me and given me a chance in life. And at that time, neither Raj nor I had any, I mean, we just got frozen on our brain. We never imagined that anybody could speak like that to us. But I guess, you know, in retrospect, there are many who think that way, you know, and and I know that many, you know, have to be told that, listen, I was, you know, really in the sector for a very long time, when I met Raj, you know, so nobody was rehabilitating me, you know, if it's not that he met me at the age of 15. And, you know, guided me into this. So, yeah, you know, just because people are thinking that they are doing good to the world does not make them, you know, sensitive and empathetic, you know, and some carry that stereotypes, you know, I still remember, you know, giving a really high profile speech in a very important city in our country. And this lady was really a high profile business entrepreneur, who got up and shouted at me, you know, I condemn your work, I condemn what you do, you know, if you rehabilitate all these women, what will happen to my daughter? And, you know, for a second that I was like, taken aback, what is this woman trying to tell me? And then I realized that she's trying to tell me that, you know, only because women are sold in brothels, that her daughter is safe. I don't understand that. Yeah. And she kind of believes that there should be some people getting sold into the brothels so that the libido of men at large is taken care. And therefore, her daughters will not get raped in the street. You know, so these are, you know, weird, weird kind of stereotypes that people carry. And it is sometimes very difficult to, you know, coming terms. Because, yeah, and not only that, you know, you realize, you know, in a very ironic way that literacy is not education. You know, you could be really literate, you know, like PhD and all that stuff. And you could be the most uneducated person. Absolutely. And I was talking to somebody who's in philanthropy the other day. And they said that actually, you know, it's very hard to get funding for issues like sex trafficking, because a lot of philanthropy is corporate philanthropy, and they want to sort of stay with the safe areas like education and sanitation and all of that. And this has so much, you know, fraught with it that it's considered an unsafe area for also sort of like philanthropic corporate philanthropy, which I found, you know, interesting and amazed by. So the fact that, you know, your organization, I want to come to your organization, 30 years and the numbers and the shelters and the education programs, and there's no words that can describe what you've done. And you mentioned that, you know, everything that you've learned in your life, theater, Girl Guides, all came into use in your work. So how did this organization sort of come to be? And what does it look like today on the ground? Um, today on the ground, let me just add the numbers and update you on where we are. As of this morning, we have rescued 32,211 girls out of prostitution. The youngest child being three years old, the older being the oldest being around 45. So that is the range and scope of our work. We work pan India, we work in 12 other countries. We run huge education programs for children of women in prostitution so that they can be prevented from being inducted into prostitution. We have huge, huge, huge programs with the community to build the community's resilience to fight this problem and build vigilance among the community members. But I think the most path-breaking work that we do is in the space of rehabilitation. We run some of the biggest safe homes in the world, biggest in Asia, but also biggest in the world, I would say, with capacity to take care of at least 1,200 victims at any given point of time. These are a therapeutic space. These are therapeutic communities which help a person heal in their lives from acute trauma and then access opportunities like education, vocational training, job placements. Most importantly, they are trauma-informed services where the trauma of the person is a central part of our understanding. And all the human beings that we remove, whether it's a child or an adult, is acutely traumatized with perhaps a huge basket of psychological damage, physical damage like HIV-AIDS, reproductive tract infections, cervical damages, traumatic brain injuries. So it's like a huge, huge basket of damage that we are trying to recover from. And so these healing spaces with a team of 200 today, and a very significant number of them are survivors themselves who are leading the programs today. We run this program, and I would say, Tara, that as an organization, we've been able to show the world that it is possible to change things. I don't know whether I can change the world completely, but I'll change the world of the human beings that I'm dealing with. That is for sure. And certain things like, again, one stereotype that the world has is things like prostitution cannot change. It's an inevitable reality, or people even call it a necessary evil. We have completely dented that stereotype and said, no, if we make the right kind of effort, you can change it. And we are part of the change. It's just amazing because the stakes are so high in what you do, and you're doing this at a scale. One misstep, so many things can go wrong. And you talk about so many of these rescue operations. So on the ground, what does it look like? Do you have volunteers that sort of get to know about these girls, or how does it sort of operate, if you can give a little insight? So rescue is a very specialized activity. It requires not just the guts and gumption, but also very specific skills, very specific skills, similar to the ones police officers have, because it involves intelligence gathering, it involves planning an operation, it involves working closely with the police, doing a recce, doing all kinds of stuff. While I would not give you the entire details of how a rescue happens, but it involves a lot of people. Our community work has ensured that we have a good number of people in the community who are our informers. We also have a huge number of our survivors today, who also act as our information, basic information. But once the basic information comes, you don't jump into a rescue. You have to validate that information. So it sometimes requires decoy operations, where you actually go in and check out whether the information is true or false. Because several times, as you said, the stakes are very high, and the stakes are high enough that anybody can be sold, including your own people. So you can be trapped anytime. There could be information given just to trap you, to kill you, or things like that. So you have to make sure that the information you received is properly verified. And then you plan the operation with the police. And yeah, it's a very specialized operation. It's not like, you know, we don't take volunteers. And the role of the informer who gives the information ends as soon as the information is given. That's it. We don't involve them into the actual operations. And what does your day-to-day role look like as a leader of this organization? I don't know what we would ask, because every day will look different. But can you just walk me through, like maybe a day or a week, what is your involvement? What are you spearheading? How are you making sure that all of these girls are rehabilitated properly, and your informers are working, and all of that? So my days are not predictable. It depends. An average day would mean, you know, you're coordinating with 200 staff, and huge, big operations across the country. It's not just rescue, but rehabilitation, education program, community awakening, and so many other things. So coordinating with all the team to ensure that quality of interventions remains high, and ensuring that everybody is on the right track is something that I do on a day-to-day basis. Running these operations, for me, is about, for a month, it requires around 90 lakhs. So a big part of my day also goes in mobilizing that 90 lakhs for the month. But every week, I have at least a few days that I kind of commit myself for rescue work, especially which is international rescues. I have made it a point that until my dying day, I will not detach myself from grassroots work. I think it would be very difficult for me to be happy if I, you know, people talk about succession in the organization, people talk about, you know, starting, you know, delegation of power. I would say a big part of power delegation, power decentralization has already happened. But for my own sanity, I have to do grassroots work. So I, although I have a very, very, very well-trained rescue team in my organization, but I still continue to get into rescue work, as in when, I may not get into local rescues, but definitely international rescues, which is far more challenging and far more, what do you say, requires larger coordination with international bodies, Interpol, UN, and several other bodies, you know, to do things in another country. So, and embassies, high commissions and all of that. So a lot of coordination goes into that, like, and these are some things, you know, like it doesn't happen in a single call. Just last week, we rescued a child who was, you know, whose sister was, both the children were sold by their own mother. And the boy is four years old, and the girl is 12 years old. And the girl is compelled into prostitution by keeping the child, the boy in captivity. Now, the boy was kept in captivity in Bangladesh, not in India. And the girl was made to prostitute in India. So when we rescued the girl, and she said that my brother is in their captivity, we had to organize an international rescue in Bangladesh, you know, which kind of took weeks to coordinate. And finally, we rescued the child. And it took us months to get the child back to the country. So it meant dealing with NEA, it meant dealing with Bangladesh High Commission, it meant the Indian High Commission in Dhaka. And it meant also coordinating with civil society organizations in Dhaka. So, you know, a whole lot of people were, you know, have to be, you know, we had to work on a day to day, minute to minute basis. So sometimes, you know, one small rescue can take days together of yours. And you're just doing that, and nothing else. You know, the only other thing that I do, other than all this is perhaps my operational admin work, which is a headache that I cannot do away with. So that's the only other thing. Otherwise, sometimes this goes on. But a good amount of my time goes in, you know, having chit chat and just chilling out with my children. Many of my kids have topped schools. We have 18 rank holders this year. They've all topped their schools. So just, you know, sitting with them, chatting with them, how school has been, has been. So I'm a regular mother that way. Yeah, regular mother with thousands of kids. With so many, many children. And yeah, I mean, the amount of dedication, you know, because it's a person's life. This is all that I do. I don't do anything else. Other than reading my M&Ps and watching movies. This is all that I do. But I mean, these kids, I mean, you know, you've changed their lives. I mean, you've sort of given them a new lease. That's all that matters. What do you like? What is your reaction when you see things like, you know, the whole Jeffrey Epstein thing and you see all these like leaders of like the world participating in this kind of stuff? And it like almost makes it seem like these are the people that people used to look up to, right? Like Bill Gates and things like that. So what is your like, what do you feel when you see all of this happening at the highest levels in the world? Never been surprised because I see it every day. It's something that is shocking for you all, but not for us. In our work, we are seeing all the big ones, so-called credible members of the society in all the wrong places. The tragedy of the situation is we're not, we don't have the wherewithal to speak their names or to announce their names to the world. And that's a reality, that's a sad reality that I live with every day of my life. Because if we start exposing each one of these people, then you will be wiped out completely and then your work ends there. Epsteins are there everywhere in the world, including every city in India. You know, they are there. Who are these people who are buying these children? Who are these people who are buying these girls? It happens in big hotels. It happens in OU rooms. It happens in resorts. In India, there are no more red light areas now. And we have rescued children from big five-star hotels to any places. So who is the buyer? Who's buying these kids? And so we have Epsteins among our police officers, judges, doctors, professionals, you name it, whichever industry. Just makes you think, you know, what you said, right? You can have education and money, but that is not going to help at all. And if these so-called stand-up members of society are doing this, I mean, it's hard to have that hope in humanity. But I want to also steer us a little away into the writing process. I'm very interested in that as well. So you wrote this entire memoir in 13 days. I mean, it's a lot. It's a lot. There's so many stories you said you wrote for 14 hours a day. And please tell me, how did this happen? Did it happen naturally? And sort of, what was the writing process actually like? So I had only that many days that I could spare. And I'm not a person who can like, rather, I think I'm revising my opinion about myself because the second book that I'm writing now, it's taken me around nine months to write. So I've written it. I never thought I can do like this, like nine months. I always thought that I have to sit and finish it off. That's what I did for I Am What I Am. I sat for 13 days, you know, closed myself in a room in a hotel and wrote 14 hours a day. It was a very divine journey, I would say, because I have to be honest, I felt guided. I felt guided every day because there were memories that I had blanked out. There were memories that I didn't want to, you know, recollect. But the names, there were people that I did not, you know, so much of guilt about Gary is about several things that has happened in your life. And there were good things, there were bad things. And you tend to block the bad things and move on, you know. But and, you know, Tara, I did not make a framework before I started. I did not make some like this is going to be a first chapter, second chapter like that. I did not make, I did not even know what I'm going to write in every chapter that way. So I, you know, kind of sat day one and everything like that moved organically, chapter to chapter, chapter to chapter, except for this first chapter, which was kept somewhere else. And I brought it back in the front. It was not easy. It was not easy writing, because several ugly and bitter memories, which also surfaced. And there was a day that I really completely threw up. And I just, it was like my body was releasing all the toxic. So for close to two hours, I was throwing up and I was simultaneously having loose motions. And it was surprising to me that, you know, after that two hours, I didn't feel dehydrated. I didn't feel tired. It was just that I had that two hours break, you know, and I resumed after that. Then it went seamlessly. And on the 13th day, I finished from CC. But the present book I'm writing is not going like that. What is the present book you're writing about? It's about my cancer journey. And I had a relapse last year. So I'm now in my advanced stages of lung cancer. So I wanted to write about my journey with cancer and my journey in understanding the health system, the people I met and all of that. I've taken around nine months to finish it. Just finished it last week. Congratulations on finishing it. Yes. Finished the first draft. Yeah, of course. There'll be editing and all of that. So you said at the beginning of the book that your reason for writing this memoir is that you wanted people in Prajvala to understand the struggles that shaped the organization. And you also wanted the world to understand that everything is possible if you're willing to work for it. So what has been the response from your readers? And, you know, what was that trigger moment? You took us through the 13 days. What was the trigger moment that you decided, OK, I want to write this memoir right now? Two, I would say, I wouldn't say one moment. My first was, I would say, two instances. One was my father's death. And just my father had this big obsession that he wanted his autobiography out. And somehow, and he had written a lot of writing and all that stuff. And I somehow made it possible two months before his death. And it was a nice book which we self-published and we all stood on the terrace of our house and released it. And what was very surprising was when he died and two months later and for his memorial, I gave this book to everybody and practically 100 percent, including my family, you know, were shocked. They said, we didn't know Radhakrishnan was so-and-so, so-and-so, so-and-so. And, you know, that was so great and blah, blah, blah. And I kind of felt, I don't want this after my death, whatever I am, you know, I want when I'm alive, I want to hear it now, you know, good, bad, ugly, let me hear it now. So I think very, very clearly, the decision that I have to write triggered from this thing. But I think it took a little more time, another month and a half, I would say, not a month and a half, exactly a month later was when I kind of plunged. I said, yes, I have to write now. And that came because one, somebody from Mumbai who called up and claimed to be a film producer and said, we're making a biopic on you. And I said, okay, very good. And what is it you're talking to me about? He said, no, we finished the script and all. I said, script, you're finished? Where did you get the stuff? He says, no, we Google searched and made the story. I was like, what is there in Google about me that you can make a whole story? And I called Raj and I said, what the hell is there in Google? Just check everything and tell me. And then he showed me around 13 different variations of my life made on YouTube. Everybody has made my story. And everybody has the same pitch, I got gang raped. And then after that, it's everybody's imagination, you know, what I did or what I did not do. That's when I decided, I said, my story has to be told by me. You know, this is these stories. This is not my story. You know, this is what you think is my story. My story will be told by me. And I wrote my story. And, you know, interestingly, Tara, now there's nobody to make a biopic. You know, I don't have anybody who's coming and saying, oh, we want to make a biopic. You know, maybe because they read the book and they said, okay, this is not a biopic material. Or, you know, what is there in YouTube was better. This is something the reality is too real for us to handle. So yeah, that was, I said, this is it. I'm just going ahead. It was just in a matter of time to fix this 13 days. And I finished it. Yeah, because obviously, you want to have control over your own story. And then and so many people, especially if you're in the public eye, you know, they have their own preconceived notions about you. And no one knows what the reality is. Yeah. And also people are like, you know, they're so, I don't know, obsessed with forming judgments, you know, and obsessed with pushing you into some dabba, you know, like, okay, you belong here in this box. This is the box that you're in. For me, there is a lived experience that I've gone through that's a trigger for my direction. It's not me. It's not my identity. It's not my whole of me. I'm much, much more than that. I'm a founder of an organization. I'm a social entrepreneur. And I have built an organization from scratch and brought it to this level. So obviously, you know, it's not like every rape victim can do this. You know, it's like your own specific skills and you kind of negate all those skills and, you know, fix one, you know, stamp on your somebody's head and say, okay, because you went through this, that is how you became all this. Doesn't happen that way. Yeah, absolutely. And I like how sort of your voice really came through in the book. It was very strong and sort of, yeah, unapologetic as well. So one thing in the book also that you highlighted is your relationships, which, you know, these, you mentioned your children and all of the wonderful relationships you have. And then you mentioned your relationship with your husband, who you met through your theater friends. And then, you know, also your relationship with Joe and Shoma and Geeta and people who actually even gave you sort of like the seed money for Prajwala. They continue to give. And they continue to give. So tell me a little bit more about, you know, your support circle and how do they play into your mission? I think I would, you know, rank myself as one of the most blessed persons in the world. My world, you know, my personal world is because of the people who are in my world. And Joe came at a time when I was, you know, starting to, you know, take those steps. And he came as that little, you know, banyan tree kind of support. Like, I'm with you. We never agreed on most of the things. But we shared such deep friendship and deep respect for each other that, you know, at that time, I don't know if I didn't have that kind of, you know, thing. And also, I think, you know, it's very important for me to mention here that several of my relationships appear providential to, you know, it's as if some kind of a divine stuff is playing around. Because Joe moving out of my life in 2005, and he died. And Raj, you know, consolidating his position in my life in terms of becoming my husband in 2006, is kind of a kind of a weird, you know, play of universe to help me always have somebody around me will be my emotional anchor. Several of my friends like Gita and Shobha, I think, saw in me and understood my madness. For reasons unknown to me, even today, I chose to be a full time volunteer. I chose that I will not take money for my mission. So till date, I'm not taking a salary from Trashola. So those, these are all very nice things to say, Tara. These are also sounding very romantic too. But practically, it means big challenges. Where will you get your next meal? How will you wear your clothes? Do you have anything? Would you even have a roof over your head? These are real issues. And I think I have to give complete credit to all my friends who kind of helped me sustain my madness. You know, it is their support, you know, and they never made me feel that they were supporting, you know. That's amazing. Yeah, so there's, till date, I've never bought a single kurta of mine, till date, including my M&Bs. You know, there are people who go to the second hand shop, that many kind of, because I read only second hand. I read only 60s classics. I don't read the present M&Bs. I read only 50s, 60s and all that stuff. So there are people just doing that, you know. And that's their daily job in terms of, you know, they think that's a role they are playing in my life. They don't know how big a role that is. Because, you know, there are so many things we can be ideologically, you know, standing up and saying that, oh, we want to live like this. But to walk the talk, it's not that easy. You know, and it's not easy in multiple ways, especially now I see it far more in a bigger way because I am with a so-called terminal illness and there's a huge kind of health bills that I have to pay. But then, you know, I have seen the universe kind of coming together for me, you know, whether it was in the form of my friends or it is in the, I think, absolutely magical, you know, soul connect that I have with my spouse, who is my worst critic, who is my, I would say, compass in life in terms of... Because sometimes the way you take up, you know, tend to become very myopic, you know, because you're so kind of grounded in this reality. This is all that you're seeing day in and day out. This is all that you see. So your vision becomes very narrow, you know. I need somebody like Raj to pull me out of that and say, see the larger world, you know, make the connections, you know, see that it is just not happening in isolation. It's connected to something else that's happening. So I am really blessed that way because Geeta, Bhavna, Shobha, Aparna and a lot of characters who are there in my life, you know, something like there are people who just indulge me. Their job is to ensure that I get my eyebrows shaped and I'm feeling top of the world. I'm the most beautiful person kind of thing. So I think some of these are the reasons why I feel my life itself has a provenance. It used to be... I think, yeah, definitely. Like it seems like you're called also to do this and like not many people sort of what you said, right? Like walk the talk. And there's a few incidents that, you know, even in the book, I was like, oh, wow, like where do you get the conviction from? Because, you know, you've been accused of kidnapping the children that you have been trying to rescue. You've been beaten up, you know, you went to jail. You've been vilified. You've been vilified, yeah. And so like there's like two incidents that I want to speak about from the book is once that when you received a video of a rape on WhatsApp and instead of staying silent, you shared it online with the rapist's face highlighted and the girl's face blurred and you had a hashtag shame the rapist. And it triggered a lot of outrage and people even attacked you in your car and the case went to the Supreme Court. And the second is when Ms. World Pageant came to Bangalore in 1996 and you joined the protest against the surge in demand for paid sexual services it would bring. And then that was the, you know, you'd planned everything but you were arrested without guaranteed bail and you spent 23 days in jail. And there's so many incidents like this in the book, right? Where you just have no fear, you don't care. It's fine, like you will sort of, you know, do what it takes. How does that come? What kind of a person sort of, you know, that it's very interesting because not many people have what you have to do these kinds of things and to stand up in that way to take what you have taken. I think outrage is not the absence of fear, you know. It's just that the fear doesn't consume you. If I'm convinced about something, I will do it. I do it and I take total responsibility for it. Whatever comes with it, good, bad, ugly, you know. When I started the Sheen the Rapist campaign, I remember a huge article in one of the online, you know, newspapers. I think first post, there are five reasons why Sunita Krishnan should be ashamed of what she did and went on to bash me about blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, you know, I don't believe in replying back to those kinds of stuff anytime. But what is very critical for me is I have to be convinced. If I'm convinced, I'll take the last mile. I have no problem. I'm just that. What I am, you know, whether, you know, it comes from my deep conviction of what I think is right. And sometimes maybe I may be thinking right, but I'm doing it wrong also. You know, there have been situations like that and Ms. World Pageant was something like that. But I thought right, but I got into the wrong company and the wrong place. But then today, I'm only thankful for that incident. Because if not for that incident, I would never have known what jail means and what incarceration means for a person. And therefore, today, when you see the way I run our shelters, it comes from a jail experience. So today, when I look back at all these instances, I feel there were different ways that the universe was trying to teach me how to do things. You know, I didn't learn it after I started. I started learning it much before I started, you know. So there was like a lot of preparation that was going on. Maybe I did not understand it when it was going on. But when I put up my first shelter, I remember that, you know. First thing I did was, we should not have, you know, food being given centrally, you know, like a buffet. You know, people should not give it. And that comes from my deep trauma when I was in the jail, where you were called by numbers and, you know, asked to come, come, come, you know, go, go, go, go like that, you know. And they just really condescendingly look, you know, come on, move, move, move kind of stuff. And I felt there cannot be a place where your dignity can be destroyed this much, you know. And that's when, you know, from the beginning when I started shelter, you know, I made sure that, you know, I had enough utensils which will make children sit in small groups. And each group will have their own set of utensils where they can actually take what they want, you know, eat how much they want. Nobody should stand in the queue, you know. Nobody is a number. Nobody has to go through the indignity of, you know, give me kind of thing. Everybody should have the, you know, agency to decide how much to eat and how much not to eat, you know. Small, small things like that, you know, today have become a complete way a safe home is managed. So I kind of understood trauma-informed services, largely from my own lived experiences, you know. And that is when you start thinking that everything happened, happened for a reason, you know. And perhaps that's why I never felt, see, because my going to the jail in Bangalore costed me a lot. Costed me in terms of, I had to completely cut off from my family. I had to move out of Bangalore. I had to come to Hyderabad. I was cutting out all my, you know, connections. And that's a huge decision to make for a young girl of 22, you know, leave home with nothing in her bag and, you know, take a train and come to another strange city, which she's clueless about. So all that has happened is, I think, some deep guiding force, which helps you process even something called as fear, and ensures that the fear doesn't consume you or become an obstacle in your life. It gives you the strength to have that little bit of caution, to think strategically and not emotionally, you know. I think for me, fear has been that grounding emotion. So when I start feeling my palpitations, it means that I have to slow down for a minute and check what I'm doing, whether I'm doing it rightly. So it's like, it's never been, oh my God, I have to go back, never. It's always been, I have to go forward, but let me pause for 30 seconds to check if I have put everything rightly there or not. So fear is a fantastic emotion if you listen to it carefully. If you get consumed by it, you'll run away. Don't allow it to consume you. Allow it to, you know, kind of temper it around you and allow it to guide you. Because you can't be foolish in your work, right? Sometimes madness can become foolishness. And you always had this conviction, sort of, you know, for what you were doing. And that was overriding your fear and all the other societal factors and everything, because that mission in your head, and you knew that this is something that you are meant for, and this is something you want to sort of make that impact with that divine providence and all of those things. So, I mean, it's been really eye-opening. Thank you so much for this conversation. It's really been a pleasure speaking to you. Learned quite a little bit from just one hour, you know, so I can only imagine what it would be like for the longer conversation. And to my listeners, you know, today's episode, won't you do something with that feeling, you know, learn more, donate, talk about things, because the, yeah. I think buy the book. And buy the book, yes. Read it, you know. Read it, yes. Absolutely, because the opposite of complacency is actions, however small. So yes, please do that. And don't forget to follow us, as usual, on all our platforms. Thank you so much. Thank you, Tara. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure to talk to you. Hope you enjoyed this episode of Books and Beyond with Bound. This podcast is created by Bound, a company that helps you grow through story. Find us at Bound India on all social media platforms. Tune in every Wednesday as we peek into the lives and minds of some brilliant authors from India and South Asia.