Sunday, April 22, 2001		Life Ties

THREE-YEAR-OLD Kartik Kapoor was the spitting image of his father. For Kartik, his father was a demi-god and he faithfully hung on to every word that he uttered, copied every gesture and imbibed his values. Through his growing years, Kartik used his father as an compass to give him direction. Without being told, he gravitated towards doing the things his father had done. He went to the same school, the same university, took up the same subjects, dabbled with the same sport activities and, when the time came, took the IAS examination.

Although his father did not want him to enter the civil services and encouraged him to took at different options, Kartik could not see anything else except follow the lodestar that was his father. For him, dad was always right and infallible. Till the day the bubble burst and he realised that his father had feet of clay. He wasn’t the paragon of virtue he had thought he was. And saddest of all, he was not worthy of the love and respect that he had unquestioningly bestowed upon him.

Kartik was home on vacation and was killing time before joining the IAS Academy for training when the story hit the headlines. A team of investigative reporters had unearthed a lot of dirt about his father’s personal life, which neither Kartik, his sisters nor his mother knew. According to the story, his father had amassed enormous wealth by using unfair means and had a mistress, who the story claimed was his ‘wife’. He had always lived a dual life. This was not a half-baked expose. The story had been meticulously put together and every bit of information was substantiated.

There were details, like bank account numbers and photographs of people with whom he had made these shady deals. The worst was a photograph of a younger-looking Kapoor with a woman Kartik did not recognise. The picture was clearly of a temple wedding. The whole story seemed to be a conspiracy by people who had been very close to his father who had ‘fixed’ him by squealing on him. The government asked Kapoor senior to put in his papers. A number of cases and committees were set up to inquire into the charges. His passport and other documents were impounded and he was told to report all his movements to the police.

The family was devastated. Kartik remembered how his mother shut herself in her room, kept crying for days at end and, in one desperate moment, tried taking her life. Initially, his sisters too confined themselves to the house. However, being closer in age, they could talk to each other. After a week or so, they resumed college. The embarrassment and shame were there but seemed more in control. The only person Mr Kapoor tried talking to was Kartik but he wasn’t listening. He had turned to stone -- cold and silent. He knew that the boy was shattered and he feared that he may never be able to pick himself up again. While he did not deny any of the charges, he did have something to tell -- his side of the story but his son had shut him out completely.

Kartik left for his training without saying bye to anybody. He had switched off and turned mechanical. Although there was nothing rude or insolent in his behaviour, he was grieving on the inside. It was as if each part of his body was bleeding. Days dragged by. He paid attention to his classes, participated in discussions but retreated either to his room or to go for a long walk the moment he could get away. There were boys from his earlier school who wondered how from being a fun-loving exuberant prankster, he had turned into a recluse.

As weeks went by, he could hear whispers in his class whenever he walked past. He knew that his past had caught up with him. Somewhere, somehow, his classmates had got wind of his father and were now gossiping, putting two and two together, getting vicarious pleasure out of the scandalous story and casting aspersions on him. During the short breaks, when everybody would rush to their parents or relatives, he would stay at the institute knowing that back home his past would haunt him more severely that it did here.

He stopped replying to letters from his old friends. He thought of running away, starting afresh in a place where he wouldn’t be haunted by the ghost of his father’s doings. But he was well and truly trapped. There were always people who either knew his dad or knew of him. Even if they made no mention about his misdeeds, Kartik died a thousand deaths each time he chanced to meet them. What hurt him most was that his years of blind adulation were misplaced. When his mother died and the sisters got married, he didn’t really let it sink in. The years just went by in a daze. Like an outsider, he went home whenever the occasion demanded but steered clear of his father.

Kartik didn’t marry till he was well into his 30s. He had a quiet registered wedding where his sisters made their token appearance. Although they had shared a normal childhood, their father’s scandal had destroyed all memories. While they had immersed themselves in their families and had even forgiven their father who was now very lonely, Kartik refused to entertain any conversation on the subject. Sarita, his wife, had thought that she could, with her love and compassion, get him around to at least talk about the hurts. However, her efforts and enthusiasm were diminishing.

After much thought, she tracked down Pooja, a girl Kartik had been extremely close to during school and college. Sarita knew that Pooja, like the rest of his close friends, had given up on him since he had been so adamant about not keeping contact with anybody. She made a special trip to Delhi and coerced Pooja to talk to Kartik. It was nearly 20 years since they had met and Pooja was not sure if it would work but decided to give it a try.

True enough, he hummed and hawed, sounding distant and confused on the phone but she stuck to her guns and insisted they meet. Being old friends, she knew what made him tick. They talked, went down the memory lane and, finally, the dam burst. He gave vent to all his pent up feelings. Pooja, a psychologist, knew that he had crossed the first stage of grief and moved on to the second stage of anger. He would soon now move to the final stage of meeting the challenge that had consumed half his life.

At the end of it, she made him see that the didn’t have to pay for his father’s faults. He should let his emotions run their full course, and not let them take over his life. His past, or his father’s choices, did not in any way taint his own honesty and goodness. He had been let down and hurt by the one person whom he loved to distraction but life didn’t have to come to a standstill. He had a responsibility towards his family, sisters, friends, to his own self and, yes, to his father, too. Whatever the older gentleman’s mistakes, he was still his father. Severing ties with him had not resolved the problem in his mind. But that resolution, Pooja knew would come with time. He had grieved for too long. It was now time to move on.