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A Ganesh Nadar

'The day your mother died, you can consider your father died too'

East is east and west is west -- and never shall the twain meet,' said Rudyard Kipling. This applies to bringing up children as well. In the West, parents educate their children and then expect them to be independent -- the gender of the child hardly makes a difference. Which is not the case in India. Here, parents have a say in all matters concerning their children and, in most cases, even their grandchildren.

In India, a son is a gift from the Gods. All talks of 'Bharatmata' and 'Mahalaxmi' generally emanates from above the throat. Deep down, all parents want a son, the heir who ensures their immortality.

A woman had no child for the first eight years of her marriage. In the ninth year, she gave birth to a girl. And she started crying in the delivery room itself, because she was not blessed with a son. Such is the obsession for a male offspring that the woman even forgot her eight barren years. That woman was my wife. I feel sad to mention it, but the truth involves us all.

My mother had four girls in a row. My dear father, to his credit, never visited the hospital for any of the deliveries. At home, he never touched the babies. In the 10th year of her marriage, my mother delivered her fifth child -- a son. My father went to the hospital and actually picked up the child. His world had bloomed. Two years later, a younger sister was born. My eldest sister died when she was two-and-a-half years old. I grew up among four girls.

The astrologer had said the fifth child should be a girl. If my parents got a son, he would be very troublesome. Despite the proverbial silver spoon, I lived up to his predictions. I was totally spoilt, though my mother used to cane me occasionally.

Three days before my 10th birthday, I had gone for tuition early in the morning. The night before, my mother had been admitted into the hospital. She was going to deliver her seventh child. After delivering the child, she died an hour later. She had B negative blood which was not easily available in those days. She bled to death. The child died a year later.

My world came crashing down. My father was no comfort; he wasn't close to any of his children. He was the perennial baniya who lived for his shop. With 13 shops in Bombay, he never had time for family or children.

My mother died in April 1968 and my father, then 48, remarried in November. In our society, it's customary to call the stepmother 'aunty', but my father insisted we call her Mummy. She didn't seem to mind, even though she was only 10 years older than my eldest sister.

The girls got along with her but I refused to buckle. I vented my ire on my stepmother. I blamed her for my mother's death. At that age, it didn't occur to me that she had come into our lives after my mother's death and thus couldn't be held responsible.

In November, my stepmother walked into the house and, in December, my father went to Devlali with my neighbour -- Iyer. In January 1969, I found myself at the Barnes school, Devlali. I missed my mother and I didn't have my sisters to confide in and cry with. For this one act, I never forgave my father, even after he died 28 years later.

I used to go home thrice a year. Once, for a week, and twice, for a month. At home there never used to be a problem during the first week. The problem used to start from the second week. I used to invariably fight with my stepmother and then spend the rest of the holidays either with my mother's sister in Malad or my father's sister in Goregaon. One day my father got so irritated that he said, "The day your mother died, you can consider your father died too." I said "Fine with me".

In November 1969, my stepmother delivered her first baby. Within the next five years, she had five children. Like us, the stepchildren were also four girls and a boy. Everybody applauded my father's fairness and sense of balance.

My father named me Ganesh and my younger brother, Murugan. If he had a third son, he would have definitely named him Ayyapan. The guy really thought he was Shiva.

My eldest sister was married to my cousin in 1971. She settled down in Kalina, barely three miles from our house in Khar. One day I broke a portrait of a diety at our home. My step-mother wept as if I had killed God. She wailed and wailed. Fearing my father's wrath, I ran to my sister's house.

My eldest sister put up with me a lot, though she was more firm than my stepmother. It helped that her husband was our cousin. I doubt I could have made myself so much at home in anybody else's house. Boarding school toughened me. I became closer to my friends than my family. I missed my mother but the pain had dimmed. If I missed my four sisters at home, I had 17 rakhi sisters in school who made up for it.

Once, when I was at home, I vomited in the middle of the night. My stepmother cleaned the mess without waking my sisters. I felt bad because I didn't relate to her yet. In December, I finished school and was back home for seven months.

As I was 16, my stepmother let me alone. In June 1975, I joined Elphinstone college and stayed at the college hostel. I went home once a week for an hour or two. Peace reigned.

After my elder sister, my other sisters were married in sequence. My younger sister was married when she was 15 1/2 years old. My objections were brushed aside. Luckily for her, she had her first baby when she was 19 1/2. I can't imagine what would've happened if she had become a mother at 16 1/2. I doubt this child marriage would have taken place if my own mother had been alive. So, within eight years, all the children from the first marriage were out of the house.

I appeared for my intermediate (science) exam in April 1976. If I had scored nine marks more, I would have been admitted into medical college. I would have married my childhood sweetheart and washed my hands off my stepmother and baniya father. That wasn't to be. Though I got a first class, I couldn't get into medical college. I didn't want to join dentistry or pharmacy.

One of our customers, Professor Dhir of Agarwal Classes, tried to get me into a medical college in Manipal. Those days, it cost only Rs 20,000. My father, a millionaire many times over, refused to pay. How could he pay and consequently face the music at home? My esteem for him fell to an all time low. At the same time, the thought of paying for a medical college seat made me miserable. I had always thought I was very intelligent.

My presence at home became unbearable to both my father and my stepmother My younger brother and sisters were very affectionate. Then, they didn't know that I was a different space. My stepmother, much to her credit, hadn't told them that we were children of a dead god.