Café Courage: Recalling the relentless fight of acid attack survivors

Shabnam is greeting customers at the Sheroes’ Hangout, a tiny café on the busy Fatehabad road close to the Taj Mahal.
“Try the Hyderabadi Biryani, it’s our specialty,” she makes a suggestion to a foreigner, who settles down for a lunch in the winter sun. The 26-year-old Shabnam, in her white tee shirt and jeans, quickly goes to cuddle her five-year-old daughter, playing on the premises, between waiting at tables. It is a beautiful day.

The deep scars on Shabnam’s face, neck and hands reveal a different yesterday, a terrible past that she has survived. She was just 15, Shabnam recalls, when her life changed at the dead of night. She was asleep at her home in Hathras.

A 45-year-old contractor of a factory, where she was working as an embroiderer, sneaked in and poured acid on her face. It burnt through her skin, dissolving every inch. She lost an eye. The young girl had spurned his overtures at the workplace, and that was reason enough for him to mutilate her face.

In 2013-15, there were 590 incidents of acid attack in India, according to the Kolkata-headquartered Acid Survivors Foundation India. Of these, 55% were committed by men whose advances were rejected. Eleven long years have passed for Shabnam. After being treated in an Aligarh hospital for months, she got married in 2010.


Shabna (right)) with her coworker Dolly.

While she carries the scars for life, her attacker’s punishment was over in a matter of months. He was released from jail after one and a half years. Because of lack of funds, her family couldn’t pursue the case. It points to a larger picture. Of the attacks registered in 2010-14, only 60% have resulted in the filing of chargesheets. While 81% of the perpetrators who were caught were able to obtain bail, 49% have absconded, according to Acid Survivors Foundation India.

The café’s manager Bhupendra recalls how Shabnam first came to Sheroes, covered in a burqa. Now she readily obliges requests from customers for photographs. “Sheroes has not just given me confidence, it has given me a new life,” she says. Sheroes — a portmanteau of “she” and “heroes” — has lived up to its name.

Table for Two
The Sheroes in Agra — which says “a café managed by acid attack fighters” on its bright blue hoarding — completed two years on December 10. It is an initiative of Chhanv Foundation, a nonprofit that aims at rebuilding the lives of acid attack survivors.

Says Alok Dixit of Chhanv Foundation: “We started with crowd-funding about two and a half years back. It was the need (to rehabilitate victims) that resulted in this invention.


Simone Haynes (left), a British visitor, with Shabnam and Anshu (right)

We wanted to make the women financially independent, as most of the victims were still living with the perpetrators. Plus, their families would not have let the girl join us just for street protests. Earning a livelihood was crucial. Sheroes came up as a result of that brainstorming.”

The chain opened an outlet in Lucknow in March 2016, and a third is running in Udaipur, Rajasthan, since September. “Uttar Pradesh CM Akhilesh Yadav visited us one September morning in 2015. It was a pleasant surprise. It also gave a push to our initiative. The very next day his wife and

Kannauj MP Dimple Yadav and her children were here. The CM offered us space in Lucknow for the second outlet,” says Dixit. The café that follows a “pay as you wish” format has visitors from all over the world. Simone Haynes, a Brit who is in India on her maiden trip, says, “In a world that pays so much attention to vanity, the way these girls have stood up and shown courage is redoubtable.”


Ritu, the floor manager, has just had her eleventh surgery after she was attacked in 2012

Haynes was at Sheroes Hangout, thanks to an article she had read about Laxmi, a campaigner for acid attack survivors who received the International Women of Courage Award 2014 from US First Lady Michelle Obama. “I was deeply humbled,” says Haynes.

Laxmi is the director of the Chhanv Foundation. In 2005, when she was just 15, she was attacked by a spurned lover twice her age in the crowded Khan Market in Delhi. Her face, ears and hands were heavily scarred. The doctors had to replace the ennintire skin on her face. Till now Laxmi has undergone seven surgeries.

She recalls those horrifying days when schools refused to admit her. “They said other children would get scared. Later, I was turned down for backoffice work as well,” she says. Rather than shut herself in a room, she decided to come forward and fight against acid attacks.


Rupa was attacked by her stepmother in 2008

“I joined the Stop Acid Attacks campaign by Chhanv Foundation in 2013; we used to protest in front of the Supreme Court every day.” It was based on Laxmi’s public interest litigation that the Supreme Court banned overthe-counter sale of acids in 2013.

According to Acid Survivors Foundation India, the number of attacks in 2015 was 249, a 12% rise from 2014 that saw 225 attacks; 2013 had 116 incidents. No data for acid violence cases are available before 2013 as the Indian criminal law did not recognise it as a separate offence.

It was the landmark Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013, passed after the Nirbhaya attack, which included provisions for treatment and rehabilitation of acid attack victims, prosecution of perpetrators, right to self-defence against such attacks and control of acid sales.

Meanwhile, the café had another surprise visitor in October 2016. Jason Isaacs, who played the part of Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films, sneaked in, ordered food and tweeted: “India stuns me witless. Yesterday we ate here. It is run by magnificent acid attack survivors.”

The Fightback
On a busy day, the seven employees at the Agra café tend to 500 customers, says floor manager Ritu. She has just had her eleventh surgery in a Delhi hospital. Her eye is still covered in bandage, but she wanted to make it to Agra for the anniversary celebrations.

“I was supposed to be discharged later. But how could I have missed our anniversary?” She has always been sporty. When she was in Class XI in Rohtak, Haryana, she used to play volleyball regularly. On a scorching afternoon in May 2012, hardly had she reached her stadium when she was attacked by her cousin who, despite her many warnings, used to stalk her.


“Life is now beautiful,” says Farha, who was attacke by her ex-husband

“I was engulfed by darkness, the pain was beyond words,” she recalls. She kept on screaming on the busy road, until her brother saw her and rushed her to a hospital where she was treated for two months. “I could not sleep; I could not see. My face had melted like chocolate.”

While the demonetisation drive has taken the wind out of Agra’s tourism industry, there is no dearth of customers in this tiny café who come for food as well as inspiration. A group of travellers says it is the sheer courage shown by these women that has brought them here.

“It feels great to see these survivors included back into the society. They are the real heroes,” says Andria, a journalist with Globo TV in Brazil. Her friend Alison Tenison, who works for the TechRepublic website in the US, says she is here to show her support for these women. Their friend Jose Carvalho from Brazil chips in: “The food is good too.” The indefatigable spirit of the women animates the place.


Based on Laxmi’s PIL, the SC banned OTC sale of acids in 2013

“Life is beautiful. Our attackers wanted to snatch away our happiness. But while they are in jail, we have a job and a reason to shine,” says Farha, who was attacked by her ex-husband, whom she had divorced after three years of marriage.

For Rupa, too, the attacker was from the family: her stepmother who threw acid on her over a property dispute in Muzaffarnagar in 2008. “People used to say I looked just like my mother.

Now I don’t — my stepmother took even that away from me.” Her crime was extenuated and her prison term reduced to one and a half years.

“I am glad that she is out of jail; at least she can take care of her kids,” says Rupa in great compassion. Anshu, like most girls here, was just 15 when a 53-year-old attacked her.

“I was in deep pain. I felt something bitter in my mouth. I had not even heard of acid attacks before.” Anshu lost an eye. It was the news of Akhilesh’s 2015 visit that brought her to the café, where she eventually got employed.

Each worker at Sheroes gets Rs 10,000 a month, besides food and lodging. Their medical expenses are also met. Dixit says they plan to have outlets in at least two more cities.

“The idea is not to have a chain of cafes all over the country. We want to make the government feel responsible for these survivors.

Our foundation may cease to exist one day, but not the state machinery. We want to create a system using state means.” As for the girls, they have seen a change in themselves and in others.

“Initially, we were ashamed of people gawking at us, of their presumptuous comments and their impertinent curiosity of kisne kiya-kyon kiya (who did it and why). But not anymore. What should we be ashamed of? We have moved on for the better,” says Rani, who was 17 when a 55-year-old ex-serviceman and father of two attacked her.

“There was a time when a couple would enter the café and the woman would refuse to order on seeing our faces,” recalls Rupa.

“Earlier, survivors were rejected and criminals were accepted back in society — my attacker got married when he came out of jail on parole. But now people are becoming aware of acid attacks and even the girls are not hiding their faces behind dupattas,” says Laxmi.

She lays down the issue that is at the heart of this crime: “Why does one attack a girl’s face? Because we are conditioned to believe that beauty is skin-deep, that the face defines a girl’s beauty. The pain we suffered is indescribable, but what we decided to do afterwards has made all the difference in our lives.”

The employees from all three Sheroes outlets have come together in Agra for their bash. “When we had just started the Agra cafe and opened our Facebook accounts, most of the girls put up photos of Katrina Kaif and Kareena Kapoor as their profile pictures.

Today they are so sure of themselves that they use their own photos,” recalls Dixit. They don’t call themselves survivors.

“It’s Sheroes, nothing less,” says Farha, as others lean together to take selfies on their smartphones, owning the scars and the smiles.