Very recently a friend shared with me her experiences about power wielded by 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 media in a fame hungry circle that celebrates publically at the drop of a hat, to garner individual attention to oneself.
As days went by she noticed that something was happening in 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 the friends 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 the media 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 has been her dedicated, selfless stand towards her profession all these years. 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 turned out to be highly political in the fact that, even in the process of tarnishing her name through media, if the reputation of the institution thereby automatically suffered a setback, it was alright to the vultures.
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 eventful, for, the very sensitive, unprecedented drama of the fallacies in the dark precincts of religion, was to play out on many a screen. Sr.Ranit the survivor in the Franco Mulackal rape accusation case had finally decided to come out of the shadows after many years and reveal her self, her identity, name and face from being hitherto the concealed face of a long drawn fight to make Franco Mulackal accountable for crimes committed against vulnerable nunhood.
In spite of her facial identity being the talk of screen and print for nearly two weeks I wondered why The Telegraph daily 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, kitchenette, living quarters, poultry, farming, 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, lack of solidarity from the most expected circles and the fortitude shown by her fellow sisters as a support system to buffer her, during the fight that 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 face, her non – anonymous status, her self-revelation and her coming out as a nun with the face of harassed history from none other than the premier authority in the hierarchy, and her attire of the habit, was the face of the front-page media for at least two weeks after this curiosity – attracting act. Her reality, visual, 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 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 frame, a sneak peek, to gobble her reality up alive by waiting on the fringes in patience and impatience was 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 and 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 sending signals of a dismal picture. In a case of been there, done that, 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 graphics and mechanisms to hide a person protected under the victim protection programme were gone. 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 –its had her Face- not that her face mattered to her; it pains her. But in such a story 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 in exasperation why the reading public of the entire State of Bengal did not get to see her face and 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 can be utilised for regular needs by nuns who do tailoring and farming and how much cannot be maintained of 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.
Taking immediate cognizance of this article that was published on 19/01/2026 one that was well written, meticulously analytical, correctly reported in most areas, but factually incorrect in some, Sister wrote a letter to the Editor of The Telegraph on the same day, flustered that her authorities may take cudgels with her for false reportage about their role or lack of role thereof. The absence of her face was ofcourse another lapse and fauxpas 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 distrubed 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, through her letter, behind the conscious decision to reject the showing of her face and personage. By now the mature world knows this demand or question is not triggered by megalomania or thirst for viewership but for 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 bring myself to begin to imagine the double jeopardy such a dilapidated rendering can cause to her existence. 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 this.
A picture of internalised bafflement, cumbersome legality, religious entanglement, feminine shameworthyness, controversial glares, sensational greed and knowledge of the real thing, she as 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 nun hood, a full 25 eventful, tumultuous and subtly exploited years that make 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 face. Do we not all keep our real faces to ourselves and emerge with the faces that are presentable, expected of us, demanded by the roles we play or the moments we are in? Isn’t the Indian psyche trained and conditioned by habit or unsupported standalonenesses to show what should be, not what is?
When committers of crime put on a face like they have no connect 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 true accuser is deemed false, two where the courage to meet the world at its judgmental threshold is needed every ‘monitored’ minute in 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, difficult situation or inexplicable tragedy. We endeavor to train our faces if not our minds and feelings to project what should be. Universal grown up human reality knows this full well.
How under sourced, insipid and poverty stricken should be the tools of a Defense Prosecutor who could ask a victim like Bhavana and another victim like Sister, with video evidence in the Dilip and Mulackal cases respectively in Court, 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 legal guardians, or victim vultures not had false faces in domestic situations, in personal reality, in professional rooms, in our hidden secrets, our untellables, unutterables, unrevealables and should not revealables, whenever an occasion, a programme or function is organised expecting us to rise up to it and deliver the facial, emotional goods? To wear such a face— one that has reason enough to break but will hold on, and successfully cover up the unbearables, one that cannot look in the eye of the unface-ables, yet carries the demands of that moment into completion — takes courage, grit and outstanding wisdom. It is not a weakness to wear a face, neither is it vulnerability to put on a face. lf a Bhavana’s beautiful face is now out in the open, and a Sister’s, thanks not to the system but thanks to their inner strength of character that is rare in the face (pun) of cowardice.
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Smitha Janet Nilgiris is a Poet and Academician.
Photo Artist : A.J Joji
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