Any blackmail has a source of guilt or shame, so a little bit of family history to highlight my source of it.

My parents are singletons and each with a single parent; my mother her father and my father his mother. Theirs was an arranged marriage; as ironic it is, in many of these marriages the daughter-in–law and mother-in-law relationship was always one of contention; the major break up came in two instances, first was when my mother then a budding criminal lawyer gave way to pressure of her seniors to bring about a great investment with the change in lawyers of the admin department of her mother-in-law’s concern that was at present held by another team for years.  With her reticence and her pride it was a loss of face for my mother who instead of being let down gently was torn down in front of the whole board and was corrected and ridiculed by my grandmother. My mother then gave up her post and started to freelance. My father had no say because he refused the position in the concern and became a government officer.  

The second was, when my sister was born; not knowing the sex of the child and hoping for a grandson, my mother’s father wanted the child to be named Moksh*. The baby being a girl, the name was modified to Moksha. This angered my grandmother who had other name chosen for the child, and was mollified only when she was assured exclusive naming right of the second child. Personally my mother decided not to have another child to snub her mother-in-law; but one steamy night and ruptured condom later, here I am; my grandmother played favoritism and left everything to me as I resembled her without considering my sister; so thus the lines were drawn. Fate did not deal kindly, and my grandmother during her last hours was forced to spend it with her daughter-in-law whom she had detested. My father’s flight was delayed and hence she never saw her son as she wished, when she breathed her last. Funnily enough, as I was a minor then, the guardianship was left to my father who then allocated the work to my mother. With her on the upper hand, she simply left it under the supervision of Mr. shasthri who was sacked by my grandmother. We had no need of that money; my parents were quite rich in their own right. But she could not move the lawyers who were still loyal to my grandmother and stipulated to continue.  

All this would not have come to my knowledge if Mr. shasthri had not, on the fifteenth of January 2012, apart from being a lecherous groper, was found fornicating with his newly appointed assistant secretary in his office cabin by his secretary Miss. Sandhya Nayak whom he dismissed on the spot and vilely insulted and gave a memo to the young but dynamic Rajnath Phani, Manager Interim, who stood his ground in support of Miss. Sandhya. Shocked and backed by the legal team, Phani hit upon the idea to speak to me about the situation as my mother never listened to anyone else than Mr. shasthri.

When I came to this knowledge, I acted on two fronts; publicly, I made a rendezvous with my grandmother’s lawyers with my own lawyer friend and took ownership of the firm. Met the board and solved their problem of low cost propensities to public tenders by forming a subcontract in hiring convicts for community service operations with the government with rupa’s help. And importantly I kept Mr. shasthri under surveillance and after collecting hard facts in the next three months and a video recording of his sexual acts in office, I asked him to resign, informing my mother of his resignation due to personal reason, with his request to give the video and not to press charges against his theft on return of funds. I kept my word; after collecting the embezzled money and his call to my mother, I gave the video proof to his wife, he never mentioned to whom I should give; and pressed charges against him for sexual assault and harassment in all women police station and sent him to jail. I never believed in being merciful to the unsavory.        

Personally I went on to collect info from my personal BBC moksha. My sister being close to my mother had a failing of being a gossip, but other than that she was a softie. I heard the story of my grandmother from her. Then,

I went on hunger strike which lasted Two days at the end of which resulted in the appearance of my father. Father is an Indian Foreign Service officer and generally shuttled around the world; at present he was posted in Rwanda. Apparently moksha had called in an SOS after I had eloquently poured my just want of freedom in to her ever sympathetic ears and the action I had taken, to solve this standoff. True, I could have called him myself but that would not be so effective a dramatization.

The living room was fraught with tension; my father looking at my emaciated form was angry that my mother had let it this far and my mother that it had come to this.

It was my father who spoke first, “Now, that we are here, I think you should break your fast and put an end to your childishness.”

I was amused at the naivety; I slowly shook my head, “Unlike you think, this wasn’t needed at all. I did this to show how childish both your behavior is; I said including my mother. I am a woman as you both keep forgetting; my fighting for your permission shows how much I respect you, likewise you not permitting shows how little you trust me.  I am going to cut the chase, and tell you what I want; I know about my grandmother’s inheritance of about Two Hundred and Fifty crores** which had more than doubled in the span of Twenty years. I think I should have been informed earlier and as for Mr. shasthri, you are welcome to view the proofs of his activities. Don’t worry I have rectified the situation and ensured the entire employee’s loyalty to me. So, now the point is whether you treat me as an adult or should I be setting up my own house?”

Believe me, it generally gives one great pleasure when you have everyone where you want them and watch them squirm under guilt; as I watched them with satisfaction and waited for them to run true to form.

It was my dad who spoke first, “well, I would say my kitten has grown claws;”  “mmmhhh he said rummaging around his file; here it is, your ticket; the flight is at 8:00 P.M, I have already spoken to Raghu, Rupa’s father and Deepthi’s father Sanjay. Deepthi’s flight is at 11:00 A.M tomorrow and hence I have made arrangement with my colleague Guru who will be collecting you and drop you in Rupa’s house, the day after.”

“Bon voyage! Remember life is just not black and white; its shades of grey, perhaps you can judge our actions unbiased one day and find that our intentions were good. As actions speak louder than words we had already decided to send you and made everything ready.” “Good night angel; Come shanthi.” he said to my mother.

“You go ahead karthick, I will join you soon;” said my mother. Then she turned to me and said. “You might think that I had no interest in your inheritance, on the contrary, it is in your interest I hired Mr. shasthri. I hired him solely to keep the legal and admin team away. There is something wrong with legal team. Their group is not listed and partners unknown to anyone. Certain cases of that group are handled by outsiders who go back once the case is over. Once when I tried to approach such a lawyer, I could see only fear in his eyes. Even in your firm there is no permanent lawyer for more than a week. Don’t trust Rajnath, he has been backed by the legal team that means he is compromised. Watch well before you do anything.” And she left.

I was not stupid enough to disregard my mother and decided to look in to it after my trip; as a precaution I had already willed my wealth to be in a trust, with my parents to continue as guardians and moksha as a trustee. The next day I flew to Indore.

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This chapter was solely for showing the mettle of vedha and her family life. 

Moksh* – heaven [denoting male gender in case of names]

Moksha - heaven [female gender]

To try finding the sex of the baby before it is born is a criminal act in India.

This act was instated to stop innumerable female foeticides [selective abortion of female foetus].

Crores** - Indian system of counting, 10 crores make 1billion   1, 00, 00, 000 = 1 crore. We count in two’s after thousand.

BBC – here it does mean British Broadcasting Corporation, used as a simile to highlight the gossiping and up to date info collecting abilities of moksha.

All Women Police Station: First introduced in India in Tamilnadu by the Chief Minister Dr. Jayalalitha, to combat various harassments’ against women especially dowry which led to killing of many daughter in laws and consequent remarriage of the grooms this was a vicious cycle, sexual abuse, rape, eve teasing, violence against women, spousal abuse, etc. this police station is filled with lady police officers only and hence women found themselves able to express freely and not be judged unfairly by a biased male. This brought down crime against women considerably, especially the dowry harassment.

 Dowry: is like price paid by the bride’s family to the groom’s family to marry their daughter. It includes gold, hard cash, vehicle for the groom, land, etc. and it does not stop there; any festivities the bride’s family has to give money and gold ornaments and all this does not ensure that their daughter is treated well.