“You are very strong, you don't give up easily.” How these words once filled me with a lot of pride. I felt like a superwoman, a tigress. Back then, little did I know that nothing, I mean it when I say absolutely nothing, comes without a cost. God also bestows upon us unique qualities, as he knows we must stand the tests of time. So, I also paid a high cost for errors I didn't make and decisions I didn't take.
Trust the Gut.
My gut never lies to me. I had been feeling uncomfortable with the way Vivek was blindly trusting some people around us. These newly found friends, a father-son duo, were all over us, being exceptionally nice and endearing. They were lending advice and favours in all possible ways. So much so that in a short span of time, they had created a niche in our small world. Vivek was trusting them blindly. Every second of his day was spent with either the son or the father; he literally forgot that he had his own family to manage. He did things he had never done before, visiting massage parlours, and was binge drinking. I was taken aback when I once saw Manit, the duo's son, managing Vivek’s bank details and also changing his passwords. I questioned Vivek, and he simply said, “ Yeh bahut ache log hai yaar, stop your doubts.” Vivek also gave them some signed bank cheques and blank affidavits for some money they said they would arrange for him. I believe they did give him some small amounts, too. To win his trust. Then, he was caught in a loop; he was taking money from them to pay it back to them. Can you get the picture? These fraudsters were accustomed to winning people's trust and then backstabbing. That’s where the trouble actually began. Due to my husband's gullibility and random decisions based on blind trust, we drowned.
How it all began.
The story started unfolding in March when Manit walked into our office to enquire about IELTS; finally, he enrolled as a student. Till May, he became very friendly with Vivek and my son Varad. He would miss class and sit in Vivek’s office. On several occasions, Manit and his father would arrive out of the blue and take Vivek with them. When he would return, he would praise them endlessly, also saying that they were ready to invest in our business to expand it. Something inside me always told me not to trust them. I kept warning Vivek and kept rebuking Varad whenever he accompanied Manit. On several occasions, Vivek also hit me and would abuse me as I was against his increasing closeness with people we barely knew. I even told his mother to stop him, but she also did not really pay heed to all my warnings. I was ready to leave the house as well. The bond kept developing from May 2023 to July 2023. In June, surprisingly, they also arranged a party for Vivek's birthday and gifted him a gold ring. All this was really too much for me to digest, and I even said to Vivek that that one ring would cost him several rings; he just laughed off my warning. But at that time, little did I know that my world was about to topple over and turn upside down.
Doors to hell.
Do you know what real hell is? Well, it's your husband in the hospital, with moneylenders, bank personnel dancing on your head, and the police chasing you with arrest warrants. Believe me, my boys, and I have experienced this hell on Earth for the last three years. The journey to hell began on 25th August 2023 when Vivek suffered a nervous breakdown and fell to the ground shouting uncontrollably with bloodshot eyes, “Sab khatam, sab khatam.” I rushed to his side as he lay motionless on the floor. I quickly checked his pulse. Then I called Varad, and without sounding flustered, I told him to come immediately to the office. Within 15 minutes, we were in the emergency wing of a famous hospital, where Vivek’s psychiatrist was already waiting for us. He said the condition was serious. After initial treatment, Vivek was admitted and was shifted to the psychiatry ward. In the meantime, I got a call from Manit’s father saying that Vivek had taken a loan of rupees thirty lakh from them. Wasn’t I utterly taken aback? A loan of rupees 35 lakh, but what for? Our lifestyle was never so lavish; we weren’t commoners surviving on everything basic, never the hype of showing off.
This was only the beginning, as they started sending moneylenders to the office every second day. One said Vivek took two lakh from me, another said Vivek took one lakh from me, and this tape was on repeat, either with personal visits and threats or the demeaning phone calls. I was doomed; I didn’t even know when or whether Vivek had really taken those multiple loans. As soon as September arrived, people from various banks started calling and visiting for missed installments for August and September for the said bank loans, also those that Vivek had taken. My biggest question was, where the hell is the money? If he had really taken such big amounts as loans, where the hell was all the money? I did not see a penny anywhere, then where the f…did all the money go? There was nobody there to answer my questions; my husband, who had been the perpetrator of the mess, was lying oblivious on the hospital bed.
The endless juggling.
Now I was juggling between the hospital, home, and office. Little did I know that my troubles were about to multiply manifold. Vivek was in the hospital, unaware of all the mess he had so naively created. I asked his doctor if I could ask him some details, but the doctor strictly declined and said that if I pestered Vivek, he may suffer a brain haemorrhage. As though this trouble was not enough, I was faced with yet another encounter. I was in the office during noon, in mid-September, a bunch of boys wearing flashy ornaments and clothes, with hair dyed golden, walked casually into my office. The leader, none other than Manit, sat across from me with another boy; two sat on the left and two on the right, blocking my exit completely. They demanded the return of the thirty lakh rupees. I asked them for any evidence showing that Vivek had really taken that huge amount from them. Then one of the frivolous boys smirked and said that the evidence would be produced in front of the police, and then elaborated that extracting money from a delicate woman was not tough. A mere slap across the face or just tearing clothes could easily get the work done. Another one took out his cell phone and showed me photos of my children en route to school or in the locality, and said that hitting them on the road was not a very tough task. Then they all laughed in synchrony and walked out as casually as they had walked in, leaving the door ajar. Can you imagine what my plight was then? My legs were shivering, and I could hear my heart pounding. My face was ashen, wet with tears, and I could not muster the courage to walk to the door to close it. I think I was still howling and thinking of ways to end my life when I heard a familiar voice asking in Punjabi, “Tuhanu ki hoya, Vivek bhaji kithe ne, tusi kyo ro rahe ho bhabhi?” What happened to your sister-in-law? Where is Vivek Bhaia? Why are you crying? When I raised my head, I saw Aman Bhaia, Vivek’s good friend. I told him to sit while I told him about Vivek’s condition and hospitalization. He again pressured me to tell him why I was crying. I believe I needed someone to hear my woes, so I narrated the events of the past days to him as clearly and briefly as I could. When I was done, he looked at me intensely for a brief second, a smile forming on the corners of his lips and reaching his eyes, then he said, “Do you know I am a well-reputed senior lawyer?” He further said he would visit home the next day, and said every problem has a solution, and what are lawyers for? He left, but at that instant, I could feel that the saviour above had sent support; an overwhelming calm ran through my nerves, and I knew for sure a hand rested on my head then.
The next day, Bhaia came home in the evening, and I had also just returned from the hospital. We sat down, and I began narrating every detail of what I knew. He listened very patiently and kept asking questions wherever required. There were many loopholes in my narrative because I could only produce the facts that I knew. Suddenly, I realized that I was under more than half a crore in debt. I was exasperated, nervous, and I think I was feeling an array of emotions, there and then, in front of Bhaia. I was feeling foolish, too. I wanted to pull my hair and shout. I even asked Bhaia if it was better to run away with my children, leaving the mess behind. He looked at me intensely and said, “Kithe jaunge bhabhi? Where will you go? He asked if I was ready to leave my man. I then said that my man was responsible for creating the mess. Tears were streaming down my face when he again said, “Sab kuch theek ho jaana aa, parmatma te bharosa rakho”. All will be well, trust God. He left after showing some hope.
It does not end here.
The icing on the cake was when the father-son duo reported about the rupee thirty-five lakh in the local police station, with Varad’s name included in the fraud, and warrants were issued against Varad and Vivek. A respectable family was torn to shreds and was paying the cost of blindly trusting impostors. Police visited us early one morning in mid-September; they banged the gate loudly as though they would break it open and called out Vivek’s and Varad’s names. My legs went weak, and my throat was parched. Jayam, my younger son, who was only 13, said he would go and tackle them, but I warned him not to appear in front of the police at all. I went to the gate, and they demanded that I produce the culprits. The word culprits was attached to my innocent boys, who would never take a penny of undeserved money. Thankfully, both Vivek and Varad were in the hospital. I told them about Vivek’s condition, and they left with a warning to produce Varad by that evening. As soon as they left, I called Aman bhaia. I informed him about the scenario, and he urged me to hide Varad as the police could not take Vivek (hospitalization: perfect alebi), but Varad was the easy target. They had the arrest warrants and could pick him from the hospital, too. As I kept the phone, I was hysterical; I really did not know what to do. I clearly remember it was a day before Dussehra, I quickly booked a ticket for my maternal hometown and decided to send Varad there. On the day of Dussehra, he was to be travelling 800 km away at the age of 18 without a cell phone, his first journey alone in utter panic. Varad boarded the train at 6:30 pm and was to reach the next day at around 7 am. The whole night Jayam and I huddled together did not wink an eye, yet kept praying for Varad’s safety. The next morning, as soon as I got a call from my brother, I knew that Varad was in safe hands, Jayam was underage, and Vivek was safe until he was in the hospital. Then a question arose, now what??
This too shall pass.
The beauty of time is that it waits for none. It was mid-November, and the whole of October was spent between the office, the house, and the police stations. I had filed a case of debauchery against all moneylenders and the father-son duo, with Aman bhaia’s expertise, he being the only person who stood by me in every possible way. Finally, on the first hearing, Varad’s name was removed from the case; he returned home in Late November. Vivek was also discharged from the hospital and was at home like a lifeless mannequin. Even though so much was happening around me, the time kept moving forward, and it introduced me to some bitter truths of life. Vivek’s very good friends, who once danced on our heads, were lost forever. Relatives, my mother and sister, were the only constants. However, my elder brother and his wife, after learning the details of what happened from Varad, decided he did not want to be associated with a fraudulent family, so they parted ways. Vivek’s family was never there at all. His mother did show concern, but did not visit him in spite of all the hell he was in. Moreover, I had never really told them about any detail, as I knew they would only judge and not help in solving anything. Honestly speaking, I really did not know what exactly I could explain, what I would tell anyone. From where would I begin? What could I say that in four months, my life was a living hell? My children and I barely had a morsel each day, and the stress kept us on edge.
December came with new challenges. I had not paid the November and December office rent, so the landlord told me to vacate. What a blow that was? Would I be deprived of my earning source too? He said too many random people were visiting, so it was disturbing his serenity. I had no other option but to comply with the fact that by 31st December, the building would be vacated. So in the last week of December, we started packing, Varad, Jayam, I, and also a helper, Raju. We packed everything in boxes, and with Varad’s help, I decided that we would move the classes home. With that decided, we vacated the children’s room at home and shifted some furniture there. As compensation for the rent, the landlord kept our air conditioning, cupboards, and big office tables. So everyone wanted to take undue advantage of our deplorable situation.
What a new beginning.
So, year 2024 arrived, and I was right on time to welcome it, but where: THE POLICE STATION. I reached there at 10 am, as Varad and I had to get our statements recorded in the case we had filed. We spent almost the whole day there. I also had a tiff with the then ACP, as he was constantly hinting that my son could be a criminal who had assisted his dad in all the wrongdoings. He even said that no one is so docile as to sign an affidavit of 35,00000 rupees. I knew that he was under the influence of the opposite party; he kept making random remarks, so I chose to keep my sanity over his comments.
By the end of January, Vivek was walking around the house, even talking to us normally, but somehow, he had chosen to forget the months from May 2023 to September 2023. It’s as though these months never existed in this life. I won’t say life had returned to normal, as I still, even today, don’t know what normal is. There was a police officer every time there was a court date, and believe me, Vivek was on house arrest. We couldn’t have him arrested; bail was not yet there. Then another blow was in late February, I was taking classes along with Varad, at around 7:30, Vivek walked in through the door in a blood-soaked t-shirt, ushered by a close acquaintance. He had facial injuries and was limping. My children and I were shocked; we didn’t even know that Vivek had stealthily left the house without our knowledge. I came to know that he had been hit by a car, and was brought back to be mercifully seen by this saviour, who brought him back after getting first aid from a doctor nearby. My first question was from God, How much more suffering was left? Karma! wretched KARMA. How much more did we have to suffer? That whole night, Vivek did not sleep and complained of a headache. The next morning, we took him to a neurologist, who, after getting a CT scan, said Vivek had suffered multiple hairline skull fractures; the skull cannot be plastered. The immediate reaction was hospitalization, but I declined, as I was dry on cash. The doctor prescribed medicine and said that Vivek couldn’t lie on his head until the fractures healed. We took utmost care at home, and by late March, Vivek healed physically, but mentally, he was a disaster even then. The whole of 2024 went by in the terror of police and court cases. In March 2025, Vivek finally got bail, though it was rejected by the lower court twice. Aman bhaia had suggested we apply for bail from the High Court. Then we finally heaved a sigh of relief. The money lenders did follow, but did not do much harm, as they were also under scrutiny of the police, as our case was filed in the High Court. So the commissioner had given special orders to the local thana to keep a close eye on people whom I had mentioned as offenders in the petition. They had also been summoned to the station on several occasions and were mum.
Welcome 2026.
This year has come with new hopes, challenges have not ebbed, yet there is a visible silver lining. Vivek is doing pretty well now; he feels guilty for being callous and not acting upon my warnings. My question here is, hasn’t he been punished enough? Can I really expect him to be punished for the same mistake again and again and again? Another question that I ask myself even today is whether I would have ended my marriage there and then. Should I have taken my children and really walked out? Was it really right to put my children through all the mess created by their father? These questions do spiral through my mind each day. Now I am also relieved that I do not lie awake and cry in the dead of the night; I am no longer on sleeping pills. I do not dread the roads, and each morning my heart does not sink to my navel. Now I wake up with vigour and a smile, the emotions that I had completely forgotten. I open my eyes and jump out of bed, happy to be alive and thankful that I am still there for the faces that made me cross the trenches. They still hug me at random intervals and never forget to remind me that: It was tough, but we made it.