On Family Duty

Weekends – my only time to have some me time but then that’s also the time when my family me drive them around – not just around – half way across the town all the way from Charni Road to Kandivili coz that;s where scores of my mamas, maasis, aunties, uncles grannies etc live – and this weekend was just one of them…I had a quality Sunday planned with a friend but instead at the last minute when my folks were leaving, I decided to drive them down myself – and save them from the harsh scorching April sun of Bombay…And there I was…catching up with all my cousins, uncles aunties…but of all the things that bothered me the most was running into my grandad’s old sister – i was meeting her after almost a year now and the address had changed. From a sprawling two bedroom hall kitchen flat to a one room kitchen in Kandivili west…yes she had been thrown out of her own house by her own kin — her only fault – she trusted them with her property and other material things. She let them in – they showed her out and now she lives in a dingy little rented flat with a maid who looks just as deprived — once living a life of supreme luxury and panache she has been now reduced to biting lonliness and acute betrayal. She is asking me if someone can help her get home back and I have no answer – I can try but I don’t know if I will succeed because her son’s name is in the part of the deed – who is now dead but it’s his evil son and wife who have taken on the mantle of cheating the poor old woman out of her own home and belongings. She has filed a court case against them but as usual the slow and unreliable judiciary of our country will either not get her justice or give the verdict long after she is dead.