Wearing My Face Before a Media that Has the Power to Make and Unmake

The present age of media is one in which stories of survivors, the likes of Sister Ranit and Actress Bhavana Menon, are told by compelling the victims to put on multiple ‘faces’ before the public eye – the face of a credible victim, a resilient survivor, just to be believed. For a sliver of hope that justice will be delivered, their bodies, their emotions and their entire being is subject to severe scrutiny.

Recently, a friend shared with me her experiences about power wielded by the media in making or marring a thing that they decide to publish. She is the head of an institution and had not given any media publicity to the positive changes, events, happenings or innovations that were being brought about, within her institution, with her at the helm of affairs. She had laboured hard with a dutiful conscience when the mantle of running the institution was handed to her. She had cared less to draw attention through the media in a fame-hungry circle that celebrates publicly at the drop of a hat, to garner individual attention to oneself.

As days went by, she noticed that something was happening on her premises that if left uncurbed and unchecked, would tarnish the image of her establishment in no time. She took measures to prevent the prevalence of some practices in her institution’s boundaries with immediate stringent effect. There were those around her, accustomed to anti-institutional practices that were against the spirit of any such socially useful, productive institution performing responsible service to society. They got the support of media persons and repeatedly used her name in news item after news item on consecutive days in leading newspapers to inform the reading public about the abysmally false and framed charges they brought against her.

She read them with a meditative calm and kept wondering about the role of the Editor. How does atrociously fake, concocted news, scripted by unseen hands see the light of day? How does fact work with the Editor? Ignoring the ill will of the perpetrators, she would go on to render clean service to her institution, as per her dedication and selflessness towards her profession. Her higher ups were watching the news items with raised eyebrows and demanded a report about the appearance of such alleged incidents in the public domain. She obliged. The ulterior aim was so highly political that the higher ups were alright with the institution’s name getting tarnished along with hers.

They had scavenged till they had had their fill and used media reporting in multiple portals as their beaks. This incident brought home an analogy to me where, the survivor nun of the Bishop rape case, Sr. Ranit might have felt let down and answerable to higher ups for distorted media representation of facts recently.

Kerala media knows that the first fortnight of January 2026 was quite eventful for the very sensitive and unprecedented drama of the fallacies in the dark precincts of religion, was to play out on multiple screens. Sr.Ranit, the survivor in the Franco Mulakkal rape accusation case had finally decided to come out of the shadows after many years and reveal herself. Her identity, name and face were no longer concealed in the long drawn fight against Franco Mulakkal, to hold him accountable for the crimes he committed.

In spite of her facial identity being the talk of the screen and print for nearly two weeks, I wondered why The Telegraph had deliberately chosen neither to show her face nor the healthy side of the convent in which she has been living for years (for instance tailoring, sewing machines, visitors’ parlour, kitchen, living quarters, poultry farming, the chapel, open spaces and gardens). Instead, a broken down room with broken down things and Sister facing the opposite direction as in the hidden days, was an image projected in The Telegraph.

It was Vinu V John of Asianet, to whom the first ever poignant interview was given without hiding anymore. Sr. Ranit expressed the angst of the struggle, the defenselessness, the lack of solidarity from the most expected circles, and the fortitude shown by her fellow sisters as a support system to buffer her. The fight threatened to turn uglier by the legal minute. It was a non-voyeuristic, sense and sensitivity packed interview.

Many media houses pounced on the situation like frenzied wolves to get their bite of the revealed identity. Sr. Ranit’s coming out as a nun with a harassed history from none other than the premier authority of the hierarchy dominated front-page headlines for at least two weeks after the revelation.  Her reality, visual appearance, her demeanor, and authentic voice was the leading image for readers and viewers.

Shall we see it tangentially this way, a little out of the box?  A ‘fugitive’ of media had willingly turned approver of media. A fugitive on the anonymous run for reasons galore had let herself be caught by the media. One, sought in the visual hunting sport, had let her feet walk into the huntsmen’s purview. A long awaited concept had walked from the shadows into the spotlight. A curious, enigmatic piece of information has chosen to come out on the other side of the unseepable, heavy curtain.        

The media that had waited for hours and days for a glimpse, a shot, a sneak peek to gobble her reality up alive by waiting on the fringes in patience and impatience was now given her name, identity, voice, narration and address on a platter. Foreseeing all this greed for the ‘appearance’ and not so much for the justice denied, she cautiously chose whom she wanted, in order to respectably handle her agony and appearance in a professional manner.

Very interestingly, The Indian Express headlines read “ ‘I don’t want to hide anymore. I want to be seen and heard: the nun speaks out.’” Needless to say, her picture of sombre sobriety near her convent’s window was the image chosen. The Telegraph carried a headline “Bengal succour for ‘raped’ Kerala nun; 3800 km apart, two women and a daunting, unequal battle.” The picture and report were by the same reporter. Batik printing taught to the nuns and survivor Sister from a Keralite lady connected to Kolkata was the lead point. Further described were the pathways to the convent, the infrastructure of the convent and activities engaged in for economic sustenance by the nuns. 

Sister’s face was absent. From the vast expanse of the “15000 square feet”, two very similar pictures published had broken frames lying on the floor and leaning against walls – a dismal picture. In a ‘been there, done that’ scenario, I have spent 24 hours with Sister months before she came out into the open. The portrait in The Telegraph was sure to convey a misinterpretation to her Jalandhar authorities and that is something for Sister to worry about. 

All the mechanisms to hide a person in safe hands of the victim protection programme were now undone. The media was autotuned to carry as much of her story as her face. The face with an uppercase letter F was the emerging graphic visual in Malayalam and English media, print and non-print. The you-name-it had her face – not that her face mattered to her; it pains her. But in such a story and at such a time, the absence of her face would also matter.

The Telegraph daily, one of the respected media houses with wide, faithful and trusted readership across the country had inadvertently created a stir within her. (An event of national political importance was occurring in Bengal, but rather than covering it, Sr. Ranit’s story was the consciously uploaded front page occupier.) The cover story did not carry her face. The lapse was so jarringly obvious that anyone in the knowhow of her revealed self would ask questions; like why the reading public of the entire State of Bengal only got to see distorted images of dismay. 

Along with me, in August 2025, a crew of honest and responsible media men stayed in the hospitable and comfortable quarters of the convent. We moved with ease in a homely environment. We knew how much could be utilised for regular needs by nuns who did tailoring and farming. We also knew how much could not be maintained in erstwhile hostels or an old age home by nuns hurting from ostracized shepherd care. As a surveyor of the scene and sisters’ realities myself, neither is the physical environment nor lives as deeply negative as portrayed. 

In response to the article that was published on 19/01/2026, one that was “well-written, meticulously analytical and correctly reported in most areas, but factually incorrect in some”, Sister wrote a letter to the Editor of The Telegraph on the same day. She was flustered that her authorities may take cudgels with her for false reportage about their role or lack thereof. The absence of her face was of course another lapse and faux pas that she pointed out. 

The subject was ‘Corrigendum to be published on January 20th 2026, in The Telegraph.’  The reporter in question was thereafter not accessible. The Editor was contacted by common friends. The Letter to the Editor did not carry the letter or its content in the following days. In a well drafted letter, Sr. Ranit addressed the falsities in the article carried by The Telegraph and pointed out the need to correct them in the interests of her sensitive and precarious position in life becoming further vulnerable to hurt from disgruntled authorities.

As a highly disturbed social being who has been in this ugly cat and mouse game of publicity, anonymity, revelation and problematic concealing – apart from other things –  she demanded to know the reason in her letter, behind the conscious decision to not show her face. By now, the mature world knows this demand or question is not triggered by megalomania or thirst for viewership. Rather, it is the need to know the logic behind doing the opposite of what any media house that has chosen hers to be the lead story would do. Here is a reverse demand for portrayal. I cannot begin to imagine the double jeopardy such a distorted portrayal could cause her. Why can responsible journalism not show some homework doing, fact checking and normal face revealing? The sob story pathos and picture of utter despair were unsolicited, for again, we are those who have been there, done that. 

 A picture of internalised bafflement, cumbersome legality, religious entanglement, feminine shameworthyness, controversial glares, sensational greed and knowledge of the real thing, she as a victim has an existence where she is eaten up alive every waking moment.

On April 14th, 2024 Sr. Ranit walked down the Jubilee aisle amidst the case and the chaos for the commemoration of her nunhood – an eventful, tumultuous and subtly exploited 25 years that made her recoil in shock, seeking succor in her Lord.

Thundering loudnesses accost so fine,

tender gentle existingnesses undermine

mild violences brood clandestine.

whispers, dawn to vespers, align.

Text I am, conveyed and deep

They read that, I wrote not on me

Piercing judgements know the stench of gaze

Pretenses hard, defenses low

They peer me into a trembling daze

Sit with me. Floodlights burn.

I was younger, ignorant once, free.

Captive; frightened and alone, facade

alone companions me along; facade

is a rascal. He too abandons.

As grace, across mayhem, sit

with me. Clutching this text in

obedience to the flow, my being shivers.

Onlookers’ text, here to stay; no

celebrations, distractions take away.

Truth settles with a thud

on ocean bed deep

What’s broken stays a token

for voyeurism’s greed.

Living a quiet impossibility

of an unknown hue, surpassing

definitions are textures felt unseen,

Packed intensely struggles essence.

Courage now gathers around the show to run

says cannot afford to be anything but nun…

One tear to the ground, a colourless few

To endure the memory of a fallen grace, renew.

All of us wear a mask. Do we not all keep our real faces to ourselves and emerge with the version of our faces that are presentable and expected by the roles we play or the moments we are in? Isn’t the Indian psyche trained and conditioned by habit to show what ‘should be’, not what is?

 When committers of crime put on a face like they have no connection with the accusations they are charged with, how much more will victims put on a face for standing up doubly strong to a situation – one where the true accuser is deemed false, two where the courage to meet the world at its judgmental threshold is needed every ‘monitored’ minute in the public view?

 We cannot afford to be raw, real, naked and original in our faces when we are going through an ordeal, an agony, a trauma, a difficult situation or an inexplicable tragedy. We endeavor to train our faces if not our minds and feelings to project what society deems should be. Universal grown up human reality knows this full well.

How under-sourced and insipid are the tools of a Defense Prosecutor who asks a victim like Bhavana and another victim like Sister, with video evidence in the Dilip and Mulackal cases respectively ? To ask questions like how was it that they were found smiling and normal, in fact happy, in the hours or days after the alleged incidents took place?

 What face is expected to be shown in public or to the alleged perpetrators by a woman who was violated brutally in a case of trust, by persons she knew? Have we as individuals in our personal and professional lives not had false faces whenever circumstances expected us to rise up to the occasion and deliver the facial, emotional goods? Does it not require courage, grit and outstanding wisdom to wear such a face, one that has reason enough to break but will hold on and successfully cover up the unbearable ? It is not a weakness to wear a face, neither is it vulnerability to put on a face. lf Bhavana’s and Sr. Ranit’s beautiful faces are now out in the open, thanks is owed not to the system but to their inner strength of character that is rare in the face (pun) of cowardice.