What does not kill you makes you stronger

I was in my husband’s office when my brother-in-law sent for me. I would yet visit my husband’s office on some days. Upon hearing that my brother-in-law had called me, my legs started shivering with fear. He was a rude man and I was afraid of facing him. There was a
small temple in the cabin. I squeezed my eyes shut and prayed to God for strength. Just don’t let me cry in front of him, God. Make me strong.
My husband had passed away on the 5th of June 1998. The civil and the criminal suits were filed against me in 1999. Meeting with the lawyers and going to the court had become routine now. In the daytime, I would be with my children and late evenings at the lawyer. The situation hadn’t improved much in the last few months.
I walked into my brother-in-law’s office. He had a big cabin with his table in the centre and
a sofa opposite it. A helper kept a chair for me in one corner. His cousin entered with his mother, carrying some books with them. They told my brother-in-law that my husband owed them money. My brother-in-law saw the papers and pointed to me saying that I was my late husband’s legal
heir they should take the money from me. After them, a few more people came in asking for
their money and he did the same. By then it was lunchtime. He ordered some food for himself and ate it without offering me . I sat there quietly. Finally I was released at 3pm. I went to my office and reeled from the day’s events. My children and I shifted to Bombay in May 1999 lock, stock and barrel. We had waited for
my elder son’s 10th std exams to get over. By now my parents were a little worried about our
safety. They were taking care of us financially in any case so they felt it would be better for my children and me to live with them. Back in Surat, there were days when my mother-in-law would come to my door and abuse me loudly.
Once in Bombay, by the grace of God, my children managed to get admission to good schools and colleges. I would still have to take day trips to Surat often for my court dates.
One night, my father woke up and saw me bending over him. He asked me what happened. Was everything okay? So I told him that I had just come to check if he was breathing and fine. That’s when my father realised how dependent I was and if anything happened to him I would not be able to survive.
After that, he decided that I should look for a job and start working and learn to earn money.
I was taken aback as I had never worked for anyone before, but my father insisted. I managed to get a sales job in a boutique. I was very ashamed to do it but I had no choice. I would drive my father’s car to work but after a month my father told me to start using public
transport. Oh my God! I had never travelled by bus before. What if anyone saw me? I would
die of shame… Such were the thoughts of shame passing through my head. My eyes would well up standing at the bus stop. I would wear sunglasses in the morning so that nobody would notice my tears.
My elder son got admitted to HR college in Bombay. He would study, take tuition classes, go to college and then to my brother’s office for work. He was all of sixteen years of age. My daughter was thirteen and my younger son was only six years old. They were grieving the
loss of their father in their own way. Time went by and in a couple of months, I received a notice from Surat court informing me

that my husband’s relative had filed a suit against me claiming that my husband owed him 
Rs. 3,50,000/-
He was lying through his nose. My husband had taken a loan from him for sure, but this cousin was 
getting some job work done in our factory and instead of paying for it he would adjust the loan 
against it. Coincidentally, a few days before my husband’s demise he had spoken about this to my mother-in-law and me. He also had all of this written in a diary with the cousin’s signature.
This was the same relative who had come to me asking for my husband’s office keys on the 
day he had passed away. He had told me that it was going to rain and he wanted to put some yarn inside. A staff member had caught him with my husband’s diary in his hand and taken it away and kept it carefully to show to us later. After a few months, he had started claiming his money. With the help of the office staff and my husband’s friend we checked the diary and saw that many of the entries had been scratched out.
Anyway, he sent me a legal notice. I did not reply as I was busy with my job in Bombay. One morning at 9.30 am, two policemen and a well-dressed lady barged into my workplace. Luckily I was alone at the shop as I was doing the opening that day. The lady was the relative’s mother. I recognised her after a while. The police and she had come with the court’s
summons for me.
Somehow, I convinced them to go away, saying I would be in the court for the next hearing.
So now I was travelling to Surat for three cases. It was difficult to get leave that often and my salary would always get cut. I started to take the 6 am train to Surat, attend the court hearing, take the 6pm train back the same day and reach home by 10 pm so as not to miss office the next day. My father would cry seeing me do this.
Life was getting very difficult. My heart would be in my children as they would be without me the whole day and in the evenings if I sat with them for long my parents would feel neglected. So I had to divide my time – ten minutes with the children then again ten minutes with my parents. Keeping everything in control was getting more and more difficult. My 
parents decided to put my daughter and younger son in boarding schools in Panchagani. It was heart-wrenching to part with them especially the youngest one who was very small then.
But I had no choice.
Meanwhile, my criminal case was going on with a hearing every month. However, nothing 
concrete happened on it. Finally, like most legal cases in India, this too ended with an out-of-court settlement. My in-laws asked for an amount of two lakh fifty thousand. I did not have that kind of money so my father offered to pay. A week before the final settlement my elder sister-in-law called me and said, “I have a sword over your head, till you don’t give me two lakhs.”(According to her, my husband – her younger brother, had borrowed one lakh from her and not paid interest for the last one year before his demise. )“I will not let my mother sign on the 
settlement papers”. She wanted her one lakh principal amount and one lakh interest. My father urged me to give her the money and finish off the matter. So I gave her two lakhs and two and a half to my mother-in-law to settle and withdraw the criminal case.

I felt as if God had not done justice to me. That’s the first time I realised that just because you are right, things don’t have to go in your favour.
I took it as my karma and went ahead to battle the other two cases. I had to now balance that with my job in Bombay and travelling to Panchgani on exit weekends to meet my children. My elder son was living with me, busy with college and his work.

One fine day I bumped into an old friend who had now become the owner of a shipping company in Dubai.
He saw my plight and was sympathetic towards me. He offered my son a job in his company with a slight raise in salary.
We were happy and very hopeful. My son worked very hard. He used to travel for hours to get to Nhava Sheva- the port, by changing many buses. At times he would stay overnight on the ships. Still, I thought that maybe he would have a good future there so he took all this in his stride. Until one day this friend invited me out to dinner and tried to make an advance. I
got really scared but held my ground with a straight face. I came home and called the friend
and fired him and told him my son would not work for him anymore.
By writing my life experiences I am not looking for any sympathy from anyone and believe me I am no tragedy queen. I don’t feel like a victim of circumstances. I just want to share my experiences so that women get to know about the Hindu Succession Act and what havoc it can create.
One day, all of a sudden, my father stopped talking to me. This went on for a month. One night he invited my siblings with their spouses for dinner. While chatting he kept saying I don’t like people who play games and make unsuspecting people sign papers in their favour.
I felt as if he was trying to pass on a message to me. After dinner, everyone left. I asked my
father what had happened. Why was he behaving like this? My father showed me a paper on
which my mother’s will was written. She had willed her assets to me in it. My father thought I
had sweet-talked my mother into writing this. I was horrified at what he thought of me. I then
showed him the paper and asked him to check the signatures on it. It was his signature at the bottom along with that of witnesses. He had forgotten that he had made this will after my husband’s death. Maybe he had gotten very emotional and done this.

I made him tear the will saying if I was so sly and cunning I would not have left my husband’s wealth and
property in Surat and come to him.
This incident broke my confidence. My parents decided to buy a house for my children and me. It would be better if we stayed separate. We moved to a nice two-bedroom house in the suburbs of Mumbai. Four years had passed since my husband’s death.
I took up a job in Talwalkar’s gym at the front desk handling sales. I took the morning shift
from 6 am to 2 pm. My younger son had returned to Bombay from boarding school. He was
nearing 10 years of age and his school timings were from 8 am to 1 pm. So I would finish my
shift by 2 and be home by 2:15- one hour after he returned. I wanted to be with him in his growing years. My daughter helped a lot by being a mother to her younger brother in my absence.
Time flew and everything was going smoothly now. One day at work I was closing a sales
deal with a lady and the landline next to me rang. I answered the phone. A man’s voice said, “When you get down from your office we will throw acid on your face and send your children

to your husband”. I was shocked. Fear gripped me but somehow I mustered a last shred of
courage. I put the receiver down and closed the sales deal with the last customer. After he
left I ran to my boss’s cabin which was empty and burst out crying. The manager came and asked me what happened, I told him about the phone call. He immediately took me to Bandra Police Station and we lodged a police complaint there.

PS: these memories take a toll on me and my family but still I want to pen then down, hoping somehow to reach the law enforcement authorities to bring to their notice how a law can disrupt people’s lives.. hoping they can tweek it a little😊