The Reading Bud

As a child born in a super rich family I had a very different life as one would imagine. A quick background of my family: My great-grandfather, started an arms and ammunition factory by the name Dewas Gun Caps Factory which was then run by my grand father (Hari Raj Sing Rathore, who completed his degree in law from London and then spent some time in Indian military). When I was born My father was still living his life luxuriously, spending my grand father’s money being a total spoilt brat. My mother was a simple house wife who was always worried about the future of our family’s business (and was more interested in relatives than my father and me!). My grand father loved me a lot so did my father but my mom was a typical mother, always after my life and being able to find my fault in almost everything bad going on around! But my father and grand father always overlooked my faults and mistakes (that’s what turned me into my dad’s replica, spoilt and careless.)

Slowly slowly I grew up and the reality started to sink in deeper and deeper that my dad was an alcoholic who never really planned to get married at all. He used to love me a lot and I realised, the way the things were, apparently I was the only one he loved! He used to come late every night drunk and would beat my mom and the next day everyone would wake up as if nothing really happened! He never so much as gave a shit about the factory and the sole responsibility of running it was on my grand father’s shoulders. All my dad was interested in was spending the money on his friends, alcohol and new cars and not to forget Politics!

Because of my mother’s beatings I was deeply horrified and it affected my behaviour a lot. From the age of 5 I was overly reserved and used to hate everyone around me in school (for having a normal family). I never used to talk to anyone, which left me with no friends. My mother took out almost all of her frustrations on me by scolding me and making me feel to be the only reason she was tolerating my father’s tortures.

I had only 1 person in the whole world to go to and share my feelings with, it was my grandfather. He understood me, protected me and was always encouraging and pampering me. He is still the only reason I want to relive my childhood. For me he was my real father and mother (at least more than my parents.) He was everything to me. I use to wake up and got to him, after coming back from school I used to rush to him first to tell him about whatever I learned. I used to play with him (actually he was the only one with whom I used to play.) He used to comb and braid my doll’s hair for me. He used to eat all the food I made with my kitchen sets.

Life was good enough for me. Amid all my father-mother problems he was the only hope in my life. Then the saddest thing took place. I was 8 years old, my grandfather, me and one of our servants were watching Disney Hour like everyday, I was cutting heart shapes out of jam sandwiches and suddenly Aladdin dropped from the magic carpet and I started giggling, so did my grandfather but he did that a bit longer and as some minutes passed I saw that he was coughing… well, he died of a heart attack that day, and with him, he took my only hope. I didn’t cry that night as I wasn’t ready to believe what happened. According to the rituals we kept the body for the entire night and guess what my dad was not there as no one was able to reach him, he didn’t even know about my grandfather’s death.

Well coming back to me, the reality of my grandfather’s death hit me hard when everyone started to take away the body the next morning. I cried, I cried hard and kicked and lost myself totally. (I’m starting to get tears right now as well, while writing but this is something I have to do!)

I lost a part of my being that night. I was already aloof and this sad incident made me a total introvert. For this behaviour my mother started scolding and taunting me a lot. I hated the fact that my parents didn’t even try to understand me. It still haunts me that my parents failed to understand me when I needed them the most.

After 8 months of trauma another tornado hit me! I came back from school 1 day and was greeted by my dad, which was odd as my mom always used to be the first person I saw every day after returning home from school. I asked him where mom was and he said she went to my aunt’s place and will be back soon. I felt odd and later realised that my mother left me and dad alone and went somewhere. After sometime we came to know that she was staying with one of her sisters. Well she never called and I was so shaken that I never cared. I started hating her for leaving me and going. I loved her no matter what and she also left me like my grandfather. I started crying again in the middle of night every fuc***g night (this started right after my grandfather’s death) but now it became a regular habit. I started to develop suicidal tendencies. Slowly I started getting over all this and started getting close to my dad. He took care of me like a princess and I actually started to like my life again, but only with my dad, because I started to feel that he understood me and also because there were no beatings. He took care of me better than my mom and I was really happy. Then after 2 months came my birthday and with it came my mother back into my life out of nowhere… to be continued