02-09-2026, 04:24 PM
SON'S POV :
The time that passed after the revelation of my father’s alleged crimes was a period of suspended animation, a strange, hollow limbo where the ground beneath my feet never solidified. I didn't know what to think, what to believe. The image of my gentle father in those videos clashed violently with the monster described in the charge sheet. Was he a victim of an unfathomably cruel setup, or had a hidden, grotesque persona lurked beneath his mild exterior all along? My mind, exhausted by betrayal and whiplash, could find no safe place to land. So, I did the only thing left that had any structure, any objective measure of success or failure: I buried myself in my studies. The looming 12th board exams became a welcome siege, a concrete enemy I could fight with textbooks and solved papers.
My mother’s life seemed to bifurcate completely. During the week, she was a whirlwind of corporate activity, her phone buzzing constantly with calls from clients (or so she claimed), her face a mask of strained concentration. The tragedy of Dubai was now a logistical problem to be managed, not an emotional wound to be nursed. Except on Fridays. Fridays remained sacred, immutable. She would leave work "late for a client dinner," or simply not come home at all, returning Saturday evening with that now-familiar aura of spent passion and distant contentment. The duality was jarring. One part of her life was a bleak drama of being a truthful and a good mother to her two sons; the other was a continuous, clandestine romance. I existed in the chasm between them, studying in the silent flat, the ghost of my brother’s laughter a painful reminder of a family that no longer was.
When my board results arrived—82%—it was a relief devoid of joy. It wasn't the stellar score I’d once dreamed of, but it was solid, a testament to grinding through the fog of depression. It secured me a seat, albeit in a lower-tier branch (Civil Engineering, when I’d hoped for Computer Science), at a prestigious university in Mumbai itself. A part of me, the wounded, clinging part, saw this as a lifeline. I could go to a good college and stay home, keep some semblance of a base, watch over whatever remained.
I told my mother the news, holding out the printout like a peace offering. She glanced at it, her expression unreadable. She didn’t congratulate me. She didn’t criticize. She simply said, “Hmm,” and walked away. No reply at all.
Three days later, she announced we were going to see a career counselor. The session was held in a sterile, glass-walled office in a posh South Mumbai high-rise. The counselor, a man with overly gelled hair and a practiced, vacant smile, barely looked at my marks or my preferences. Instead, he launched into a rehearsed spiel about "thinking outside the box" and "the incredible opportunities in emerging colleges outside the metro cities." He pushed brochures for institutes in Pune, Manipal, even one in Rajasthan, talking up their "world-class infrastructure" and "high placement packages" with a zeal that felt completely disconnected from their actual, middling reputations.
My mother listened intently, nodding. Then she turned to me, her voice adopting the counselor’s plastic enthusiasm. "You should explore outside Mumbai, Arjun. See new places, meet new people. It’s not good to always remain in one place, tied to the same environment."
I knew instantly. This wasn't about opportunity. This was about removal. I was a loose end, a pair of watching eyes, a living reminder of the husband incarcerated in Dubai. My presence in the Mumbai flat, even as a college student, would be an obstacle. It would mean questions about her Friday absences. It would mean a witness to the gradual erasure of my father from our home. She wasn't sending me away for a better education; she was clearing the stage for the next, uninterrupted act of her life with Aakash.
The plan unfolded with cold, efficient speed. Days later, over dinner (a quiet, tense affair), she casually mentioned my younger brother, Rohan. "With you going away to a hostel," she said, stirring her dal, "there will be no one to help Rohan with his studies. The tuition teachers here are not reliable. I’ve been looking into options." She then presented the fait accompli: a "top-tier" boarding educational instituition in Bengaluru. It was framed as an academic necessity, but the subtext screamed: He is also in the way.
I was stunned. "Have you already decided I’m going to an outside college?" I asked, my voice trembling. "I got a seat here. In Mumbai."
Her patience, always thin these days, snapped. She put her spoon down with a sharp clink. "That seat is in a lower branch," she stated, her voice turning stern, final. "You will not get a proper job from that. The decision is made. You will go to a proper college, in a proper branch, even if it is outside. This is for your future." The words were parental concern weaponized as banishment. My future, in her hands, was a map where home was deliberately X-ed out.
The weeks that followed were a blur of grim logistics. My admission was secured at an engineering college in Pune—a decent college, but one chosen for its distance, not its merit. Simultaneously, the paperwork for Rohan’s boarding educational instituition in Bengaluru was finalized. The day arrived to drop him off. He was five, confused and clingy, his small suitcase looking absurdly large in his hand. As we stood outside the imposing gates of the residential college, he clutched my leg, his big eyes filling with tears. "Why can't I stay with you, Bhaiya?" he whimpered.
I broke down. I knelt and hugged him, crying harder than he was, my tears soaking into his little shirt. The guilt was crushing. I was being sent away, and I was complicit in sending him away too, fracturing the last bond of our shattered family. Our mother stood a few paces back, her face a careful composition of sad resolve. She shed a few tears, but they were measured, performative. Her grief had limits, neatly contained by the greater plan. I couldn't believe how can a mother do that to her 5 year old son and get him away from her and for what ? , to continue her sexual affair without any limits. What will happen to his growth when he will grow up without the love of his parents, how can a normal biological mother not think about these things.
Then it was my turn. A few weeks later, with a single trunk and a backpack, I stood at the gates of my new college hostel in Pune. My mother came to "settle" me. She helped me make the bed, bought me some buckets and mugs from the local market, and handed me an envelope with a month's allowance. Her actions were mechanically maternal, devoid of warmth. As she prepared to leave, she stood at the door of my sparse, twin-shared room. She looked at me, and for a second, the mask slipped. In her eyes, I didn't see sadness at her son leaving home. I saw relief. Profound, unburdening relief.
"Study hard," she said, the standard parting phrase. Then she turned and walked down the hostel corridor, her heels clicking a steady, retreating rhythm on the polished cement floor. I watched her go, standing in the doorway of my new, empty life. The umbilical cord wasn't cut; it was surgically severed by her own hand, with a clear clinical purpose. My college life started not with the boisterous anticipation of freedom, but with the heavy, lonely silence of exile. The house in Mumbai was now empty, save for her. A clean slate, ready for Aakash to finally, fully, move in.
The time that passed after the revelation of my father’s alleged crimes was a period of suspended animation, a strange, hollow limbo where the ground beneath my feet never solidified. I didn't know what to think, what to believe. The image of my gentle father in those videos clashed violently with the monster described in the charge sheet. Was he a victim of an unfathomably cruel setup, or had a hidden, grotesque persona lurked beneath his mild exterior all along? My mind, exhausted by betrayal and whiplash, could find no safe place to land. So, I did the only thing left that had any structure, any objective measure of success or failure: I buried myself in my studies. The looming 12th board exams became a welcome siege, a concrete enemy I could fight with textbooks and solved papers.
My mother’s life seemed to bifurcate completely. During the week, she was a whirlwind of corporate activity, her phone buzzing constantly with calls from clients (or so she claimed), her face a mask of strained concentration. The tragedy of Dubai was now a logistical problem to be managed, not an emotional wound to be nursed. Except on Fridays. Fridays remained sacred, immutable. She would leave work "late for a client dinner," or simply not come home at all, returning Saturday evening with that now-familiar aura of spent passion and distant contentment. The duality was jarring. One part of her life was a bleak drama of being a truthful and a good mother to her two sons; the other was a continuous, clandestine romance. I existed in the chasm between them, studying in the silent flat, the ghost of my brother’s laughter a painful reminder of a family that no longer was.
When my board results arrived—82%—it was a relief devoid of joy. It wasn't the stellar score I’d once dreamed of, but it was solid, a testament to grinding through the fog of depression. It secured me a seat, albeit in a lower-tier branch (Civil Engineering, when I’d hoped for Computer Science), at a prestigious university in Mumbai itself. A part of me, the wounded, clinging part, saw this as a lifeline. I could go to a good college and stay home, keep some semblance of a base, watch over whatever remained.
I told my mother the news, holding out the printout like a peace offering. She glanced at it, her expression unreadable. She didn’t congratulate me. She didn’t criticize. She simply said, “Hmm,” and walked away. No reply at all.
Three days later, she announced we were going to see a career counselor. The session was held in a sterile, glass-walled office in a posh South Mumbai high-rise. The counselor, a man with overly gelled hair and a practiced, vacant smile, barely looked at my marks or my preferences. Instead, he launched into a rehearsed spiel about "thinking outside the box" and "the incredible opportunities in emerging colleges outside the metro cities." He pushed brochures for institutes in Pune, Manipal, even one in Rajasthan, talking up their "world-class infrastructure" and "high placement packages" with a zeal that felt completely disconnected from their actual, middling reputations.
My mother listened intently, nodding. Then she turned to me, her voice adopting the counselor’s plastic enthusiasm. "You should explore outside Mumbai, Arjun. See new places, meet new people. It’s not good to always remain in one place, tied to the same environment."
I knew instantly. This wasn't about opportunity. This was about removal. I was a loose end, a pair of watching eyes, a living reminder of the husband incarcerated in Dubai. My presence in the Mumbai flat, even as a college student, would be an obstacle. It would mean questions about her Friday absences. It would mean a witness to the gradual erasure of my father from our home. She wasn't sending me away for a better education; she was clearing the stage for the next, uninterrupted act of her life with Aakash.
The plan unfolded with cold, efficient speed. Days later, over dinner (a quiet, tense affair), she casually mentioned my younger brother, Rohan. "With you going away to a hostel," she said, stirring her dal, "there will be no one to help Rohan with his studies. The tuition teachers here are not reliable. I’ve been looking into options." She then presented the fait accompli: a "top-tier" boarding educational instituition in Bengaluru. It was framed as an academic necessity, but the subtext screamed: He is also in the way.
I was stunned. "Have you already decided I’m going to an outside college?" I asked, my voice trembling. "I got a seat here. In Mumbai."
Her patience, always thin these days, snapped. She put her spoon down with a sharp clink. "That seat is in a lower branch," she stated, her voice turning stern, final. "You will not get a proper job from that. The decision is made. You will go to a proper college, in a proper branch, even if it is outside. This is for your future." The words were parental concern weaponized as banishment. My future, in her hands, was a map where home was deliberately X-ed out.
The weeks that followed were a blur of grim logistics. My admission was secured at an engineering college in Pune—a decent college, but one chosen for its distance, not its merit. Simultaneously, the paperwork for Rohan’s boarding educational instituition in Bengaluru was finalized. The day arrived to drop him off. He was five, confused and clingy, his small suitcase looking absurdly large in his hand. As we stood outside the imposing gates of the residential college, he clutched my leg, his big eyes filling with tears. "Why can't I stay with you, Bhaiya?" he whimpered.
I broke down. I knelt and hugged him, crying harder than he was, my tears soaking into his little shirt. The guilt was crushing. I was being sent away, and I was complicit in sending him away too, fracturing the last bond of our shattered family. Our mother stood a few paces back, her face a careful composition of sad resolve. She shed a few tears, but they were measured, performative. Her grief had limits, neatly contained by the greater plan. I couldn't believe how can a mother do that to her 5 year old son and get him away from her and for what ? , to continue her sexual affair without any limits. What will happen to his growth when he will grow up without the love of his parents, how can a normal biological mother not think about these things.
Then it was my turn. A few weeks later, with a single trunk and a backpack, I stood at the gates of my new college hostel in Pune. My mother came to "settle" me. She helped me make the bed, bought me some buckets and mugs from the local market, and handed me an envelope with a month's allowance. Her actions were mechanically maternal, devoid of warmth. As she prepared to leave, she stood at the door of my sparse, twin-shared room. She looked at me, and for a second, the mask slipped. In her eyes, I didn't see sadness at her son leaving home. I saw relief. Profound, unburdening relief.
"Study hard," she said, the standard parting phrase. Then she turned and walked down the hostel corridor, her heels clicking a steady, retreating rhythm on the polished cement floor. I watched her go, standing in the doorway of my new, empty life. The umbilical cord wasn't cut; it was surgically severed by her own hand, with a clear clinical purpose. My college life started not with the boisterous anticipation of freedom, but with the heavy, lonely silence of exile. The house in Mumbai was now empty, save for her. A clean slate, ready for Aakash to finally, fully, move in.
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