I am passing through a bad phase – march 1st, 2003.
03/03/2003 04:24 p.m.

I am passing through a bad phase – march 1^st, 2003.

When did it start?

Did it start with the retirement of my father from active participation in the family affairs owing to his heart attacks and subsequent open-heart surgery of no avail?

I don’t think.

Seeing the whole scene retrospectively, I think the subsequent events proved good for the family. And it goes without saying that events are interrelated subject to the law of cause and effect.

Did this start with the heart attack my elder brother had at the age of forty-one and subsequent two heart surgeries, (one of them an experimental, where in his heart was converted into a sponge like thing, known as TMR)?

I don’t think.

The family got adjusted to this situation too and the affairs of the family went smoothly, though it did increase my burden in terms of responsibility.

Did it start with my decision to quit the business group, obviously on their terms, of which, I was one of the promoters, where I had two roles to play, one of them of my liking that of a forester?

I don’t think.

Since quitting was my logical decision in my best interest. While part of this group, I had tried to balance my life with the dreams of my co-promoters and concluded that I just can’t go along with them. I have never looked back since then and I do feel good about that decision.

I think the bad phase started with the happenings devastating my sister’s family. The death of the KARTA (the doer, her father in law), followed by the deaths of two of her husband’s brother’s, and many more untoward events culminating into my brother in law going broke, despite all kind of financial support from my end, resulting into my brother in law becoming liquor addict and my sister to some kind of a drug. They simply failed to adjust to their new realities.

Yes, the bad phase in my life started from here since this caused me immense mental stress. My entire endeavor to resettle them failed because of their naivety, addiction and foolhardiness. I had to relocate them near my house in my hometown with increased burden of five members including education of three of her daughters. In the process I had to shut down a family restaurant in my hometown.

By the time my sister’s family got settled down, I was served with a notice for demolition of my newly constructed house for political reasons. Some how I could manage to get the order kept in abeyance at a great cost. But it did cause me hell of anxiety and stress.

By the time I could resolve cause of this stress, and settle down, the biggest set back of my life emerged out of the blue and hit me so hard that I really do not know if I would ever come out of it, intact.

The apparent cause of this bolt from the blue is the attitude of my elder brother. My brother has a tendency of not applying him self to any of the problems. He has an inherent tendency to run away from any problems. And where he cannot he would try and find short cuts. As a result, in one of the industrial set up, in which the family had invested huge sums in the form of equity and loans, in which my brother was one of the non participating director and my nephew involved full time, another director, who was managing the financial affairs siphoned huge sums and one fine day absconded leaving huge institutional, bank and market liabilities unpaid, including many post dated cheque. Incidentally, the family had given one of its commercial properties as collateral securities apart from my brothers and my personal guarantee’s.

I did my best to block all kind of negative emotions resulting from the aftermath of this event, which in turn resulted into a psychosomatic problem in the shape of a frozen shoulder, which I am trying to undo after ignoring it for almost three months.

This unforeseen event has not only made people to talk all kind of exaggerated nonsense satisfying their false egos and sadism (though it doesn’t affect me since I am used to living with my truth), this has also initiated many criminal and civil cases, both way. This had also displaced my family for some time (part of it, since we live in two different towns).

After giving due thought I took a decision. People pay with their lives to make/save money. I decided to pay the cost for getting back my life. I do feel that this shall help my family in the long run, particularly the youngsters. The continuation of this state of affair, I am sure, will affect their psychology in a negative way. I have decided to come out of it as fast as I can. I WANT MY LIFE BACK.

My sole anxiety at this point of time is that what I am left with in terms of life shall now have to be invested to control the damage. An investment, which will bring me no returns. (I am still struggling to accept my helplessness. This needs so much courage) the damage is already done. What all I can do is try and control the damage. And well, this will be at the cost of my life.