A Father–Son Relationship That Died While Still Alive

My father passed away. I received this news from my neighbors in India. He was my father… but at that moment, I felt a strange state of mind.

My chest felt heavy. My eyes burned. A strange anxiety was growing within me. It felt as if a deep restlessness was rising within me… but tears wouldn’t come. My father had made me cry so much while he was alive that I couldn’t bring myself to cry after his death.

I told Pawan and Jai, “My father is dead.”

He was very fond of food and eating. Even after my mother’s death, he always took care of my eating and food. He loved good food himself and was equally fond of feeding others.

I said, “Come on, today I’ll cook well.”

That day, I cooked with all my heart and with great concentration. I ate and fed everyone.

Perhaps this was my tribute to him… This is how I mourned.

Then that very day, I wrote my father’s name on a piece of paper, expressing my feelings and love. I knew his body was being kept at my home. I kept the letter with me overnight.

The next day, as his funeral was taking place in India, I also burned the letter, performing the last rites on my behalf, and bid farewell to my father.

And in this way, that father—who had already told me, “I am dead for you”—

accepted his physical death.

In a way, by not going there, I fulfilled my father’s wish, because he didn’t want to see my face or speak to me.

About three years ago, when I received the news that my father was seriously ill and was hospitalized in Delhi, I started crying. I took the next flight to Delhi. I stood beside him in the hospital for three days, crying. Forget about hugging me, my father didn’t even speak to me. He spoke to others, but not to me.

At that very moment, I decided—even if he dies, there’s no point in me coming. If he doesn’t want to see me or talk to me while he’s alive, why should I go after he’s dead? I’m the son who was orphaned despite having a father.

When I returned from Delhi, he recovered and returned home. Later, I heard him telling people, “He just came to see if I was dead.”

Oh, if that were the case, I would have gotten the news… Why would I need to fly all the way to Delhi for that?

Now that he was already dead, what justification did I have for going when my brothers were not only getting my father to give a false statement to the police, but were also using their political connections to get my rights shelved, and were conspiring to have me arrested.

My father and I didn’t have a good relationship. We hadn’t spoken for about 6-7 years. A few weeks before his illness, I sent him a message saying, “I want to hug you once, I want to meet you while you’re still alive… Tell me, when should I come?”

But he never responded.

I had tried many times before—texting, calling—but he had already broken off contact with me and said, “I’m dead for you.”

To be honest, my father had already died for me years ago. And when he actually passed away, it didn’t make much difference to my life. There was no communication, no connection, no emotional connection—nothing.

However, it wasn’t that our relationship was always bad. There was a time when he loved me like a son, and I respected him like a father. But everything changed over time.

I kept everything I earned in the hands of my father and brothers. Land, property, everything—all in their names. Today, I’m sitting empty-handed.

I know how my brothers pressured my father. They exploited his weaknesses and manipulated him. The people at the ashram, the staff—everyone knew the truth.

My father would often cry on the phone, saying that his younger brother drank, gambled, and squandered his money on womanizing. Once, he even showed me hidden liquor bottles and drugs.

He wanted some of the ashram’s land transferred to my name. He even called a lawyer for this. But my brothers opposed it and wouldn’t let him do so.

Gradually, so much pressure was built that my father began making false allegations against me and even filed false statements against me with the police, claiming that I was abusing my mother.

Can anyone imagine? The same father who once fought for me now turned against me.

One incident still breaks my heart.

Once he called and asked, “When are you coming?”

At that time, I was trying to establish my business. I said, “I’m having a little financial problem. The tickets alone will cost a lot, but don’t worry. I’ll make some arrangements, save up, and then make plans to come.”

After a while, he said, “Then just send us the ticket money, we need it here.”

What must have gone through my heart at that moment…

A father wasn’t interested in meeting his son or granddaughter—he only wanted the money. Throughout my life, I witnessed my father’s financial struggles with many people, including his disciples, servants, friends, acquaintances, relatives, and ultimately, even with his own children.

I was earning good money from abroad. Everything was going well. Father was watching all this. But still, his habit of begging, almost like begging, wouldn’t go away.

He would tell the disciples, “Give me flour, lentils, rice, and sugar.” Sometimes he would do this secretly, because this habit wouldn’t go away.

I would often fight with him about this. I would say, “Why do you do this? I don’t want us to live like this by begging. We work hard, we have everything. You don’t lack anything.”

But he was compelled by his habit.

I wanted this begging situation to end, and for us to eat what we earned through hard work. But he continued doing the same thing—ordering flour, lentils, and rice in the children’s charity names, then cooking food with it and selling it to restaurants, or selling the rice directly in the market.

I didn’t like all this at all.

Now my brothers are carrying on the same tradition.

He even distanced themselves from my daughter. As long as I kept sending money, everything was fine. As soon as I stopped sending the donations meant for the children, knowing my brothers were squandering it on debauchery, he stopped talking to me.

He used to call once a year on my daughter’s birthday. One day, she went to the bathroom and started crying. She said, “Why do Babbaji only call on my birthday? Why not on other days?”

I told my father about this… and he stopped calling even on her birthday.

I’ll write someday about how my brothers conspired to turn my father against me. Surely, if he had wanted to, he could have corrected both of my younger brothers, but he simply didn’t have that much strength left. The weak nerve that the brothers had suppressed in him had forced him to do so.

These same brothers of mine, who today, after their father’s death, are posing as filial devotees, used to abuse him in closed rooms while he was alive, saying, “I will tear your dhoti and disgrace you in public.” My father would listen quietly, bowing his head, and do whatever my brothers wanted.

My brothers used the mistakes I had forgiven my father for as a weapon to blackmail him. I felt pity for my father’s condition, but a person drowned in ego, anger, and frustration cannot accept the truth.

When I think about all this today, I feel like—if my brothers had called me and said, “Babbaji is gone, Dada, come for us,” I would have definitely gone.

But I know they never say that. Some relationships end before death. Even three years ago, when I went to India due to my father’s illness, it wasn’t my brothers who informed me about it, but others. Because for them, I was already dead long ago.

My brothers, driven by greed, kept everything for themselves—my rights, my wife’s rights, my daughter’s rights.

I still want to tell them—

Father is gone… one day we will too.

Today we are fighting, tomorrow our children will fight.

Don’t be dishonest. Come.

You take more, give me a little.

I deserve something.

And listen—you snatched my 40 years of earnings in one fell swoop because I trusted you. Don’t think I’ll forget that. I will never forget. I will keep fighting for my rights until my death. Just think, how will the person whose life’s earnings you snatched forget it? This is the only purpose of my remaining life. You used to say, “Go and do whatever you want.” I promise you that I will definitely do whatever I can, I will do everything, but I will not abandon you. You not only separated me from my father, but also took away my wealth and the happy memories of my childhood.

I have nothing to lose…

But you have a lot to lose.

Time doesn’t always stay the same.

Come… meet me…

You are my brother… you are my blood…

Don’t betray me like this.

I wonder who my brothers’ well-wishers are, who can’t even advise them on their own well-being.

Although my father’s death hasn’t made any significant difference to my current life, there’s still a void in my heart. A feeling—that now I am next in line.

I’m not afraid of dying. I’m not particularly worried about it. I’ve lived a full and happy life, and I continue to live it.

But I do have one wish—that before I die, I can make my brothers realize they’ve wronged me. And that no one ever faces a situation like my father’s.

No father should have to spend the last years of his life the way my father did.

That’s all I want—that no father should go through the pain my father went through. Whatever he did to me or anyone else, or whatever he was, he was my father. My last respects to him.

Related posts