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A Ganesh Nadar

'Just because your father died, it doesn't mean we are finished too. Come home'

At 18, I was packed off to Tuticorin, 2000 km from Tamil Nadu. I hated the place. I didn't miss my family, but I did miss my friends. Though my father had refused to finance my medical seat, he gave me Rs 30,000 to run a rice mill in Tuticorin. Six months later, I had increased my capital to Rs 45,000. A year later, I ran the mill into the ground.

Before I started running the mill, I threw out two people who were running the mill before me. They were the husbands of my stepmother's two elder sisters.

My father decided that I had run into a loss because some evil spirit was living in me. No man will admit that he gave birth to a devil child. Anyway, to get rid of this alleged evil spirit, my hands and legs were manacled and I was put in iron chains in a temple in Chetiapathu near Udangudi, VOC district of Tamil Nadu. The manacles stayed for three days and nights.

I fell ill and my temperature rose to 104 degree F. The temple priest got scared and removed the manacles. I was taken to a doctor. I remained in the temple for 41 days. I came out a complete orphan. My father, my own sisters, no one had visited me there.

I joined a rice mill in Sayarpuram as a manager. I was paid Rs 150 per month. Six months later, my father welcomed me home to Bombay.

This time, my stay at home lasted barely a month. My father moved me to Matunga, where the servants who worked at our shop lived. Within a month, I threw the servants out. Now I had my own pad in Bombay, even though it was in a chawl (a building with one-room tenements with a common bath and toilet). I worked for my father for two months and then decided to rejoin college.

I had stopped talking to my stepmother. My father refused to pay my college fees. I sold the chawl house and went to college. When I ran out of money, I went and stayed with my eldest sister. When she threw me out, I moved into her servant's quarters where the servants who worked in her shop stayed. I continued studying.

I rarely met my father and every meeting was scarred by bitter fighting.

When I was in my third year in college, I had no place to go. I dropped out of college and joined a soap factory in Andheri. I used to work during the day and sleep on the terrace at night. During those days, my hatred for my parents grew. My married sisters stayed out of sight.

From Andheri, I shifted to a bulb factory in Dehradun. The new year dawned to find me shivering in the cold in Dehradun. A far cry from the child born with a silver spoon in his month. The salary from the bulb factory wasn't enough, so my father used to send me Rs 300 every month. The man would pay anything to keep me at a safe distance.

I didn't like the bulb factory, so I came back to Bombay. My stepmother wouldn't let me into the house so I stayed with the servants. I hated the shop, so I refused to work. I used to eat and sleep.

On a friend's advice, I joined an advocate as his clerk. I was with him for a year. He was a very good man. He had dreams of making me a lawyer when I quit.

My father had found a girl for me. My stepmother refused to go to see the girl; she insisted that, later, I would blame her every time I differed with my wife. So my father and my eldest sister went to see that girl. They approved of her. As my stepmother predicted, I didn't like the girl. I still abuse my eldest sister every time my wife quarrels with me.

I was married in September 1984 and returned to Bombay with my new bride. I quarrelled with my stepmother and was thrown out again. We came back to my village in Tamil Nadu.

In January 1985, my father divided the property and asked me to sign the documents. I told him to go to hell. So he started a shop for me in Madras with Rs 100,000. I ran it to the ground in about 10 months. We came back to our village.

I was happy, but bored. After a year, we returned to Bombay. In about six months, before the fights started, I decided to go back. Bombay's crowds and the tension at home were getting on my nerves.

As my own rice mill in Tuticorin had been sold, I leased a mill in Sayarpuram where I had worked 10 years ago. While I was running the mill, my stepmother came to meet me. She advised me to close the mill as I was operating at a loss. I refused. My parents had moved to Madras after I moved to Sayarpuram.

In five years, I lost Rs 250,000 in the rice mill venture. The lease ran out. I went back to my village penniless. After eight years of marriage, my wife was pregnant. Though my father had paddy fields and over 100 coconut trees in my village, he had instructed my uncle not to give me a penny. I mortgaged my wife's jewels to see her through the pregnancy.

When she was seven months pregnant, my ma-in-law came to take her home. My stepmother came for the ceremony. When my wife delivered again, my stepmother came down from Madras to see the baby.

My stepmother has seen all my sisters through their pregnancies. She has looked after 15 grandchildren. My sisters run to her with all their problems. The grandchildren are very fond of her.

My father died suddenly last year. On the third day after his death, my stepmother offered to divide the property. I refused, saying it was too early and downright vulgar. A week later, my stepmother and I had our usual fight. She refused to talk to me though I was in the house for 16 days. What was different this time was that my normally affectionate stepsisters refused to talk to me too. I was shocked. I left with my wife and vowed never to return.

After 10 months, my stepmother called me a few weeks ago. She said, "Just because your father died, it doesn't mean we are finished too. Come home." I said okay, but there was no lump in my throat. I felt sad I didn't feel happy that she had called. I don't hate her any more. I have grown beyond that. What makes me sad is that I had loved my younger sisters as my own for so long. That love was lost in those two weeks of silence.

My father was a multimillionaire. He died a rich man. All the property was in his and his second wife's name. I haven't seen the will, but I hear he's left everything to her. My mother spent 19 years of her life with my father and my stepmother, 28.

If my stepmother so decides, she can easily sell the fields that feed me. She could even turn me out of the house. Legally, I cannot do anything and, basically, I am too lazy to do anything.