"I Started Saving For Your Car": Atul Subhash's Letter To 4-Year-Old Son

In the 24-page note Atul Subhash wrote before his death by suicide on Monday, the techie left a letter addressed to his four-year-old son, who stays with Atul's estranged wife Nikita Singhania. Atul wrote that he wanted to say a few things to his son and hoped he would become "wise enough to understand it someday". The 34-year-old's letter includes advice that many would find problematic and even sexist, perhaps reflecting his distress.

"Son - when I first saw you, I thought that I could give my life for you anyday. But, sadly, I am giving my life because of you. I don't even remember your face now till I see pictures of you when you were 1 year old. I don't feel anything about you now except a tinge of pain sometimes. Now, You just feel like a blackmail using which I will be extorted more and more. Though it would hurt you, the truth is that now you feel like a mistake I made," Atul wrote in the letter in which he detailed how his wife and her family were allegedly using his son to extort money from him.

He has said that the court had asked him to pay his wife a maintenance of Rs 80,000 per month for herself and their son, but Nikita wanted this to be increased to Rs 2 lakh. "It is just sad that this shameless system can make a child a burden and liability to his father. I have met a lot of alienated fathers, most of them speak of similar feelings when they are being honest."

Atul has said that his wife did not let him meet his son since they separated in 2021. His brother Bikas Kumar has said in his abetment to suicide complaint that Nikita had demanded Rs 30 lakh from Atul to let him meet their son.

"Till I am alive and make money, they will use you as a tool to harass your grandparents, uncle and me to extort more and more money from me. I can't let all this harass my father, mother and brother unnecessarily. Not even for you. I can sacrifice 100 sons like you for my father. I can sacrifice a 1,000 of me for you. But I will not be the reason for the harassment of my father," Atul wrote to his son.

He wrote that he doubts his son will ever understand what a father is. "But I know exactly what a father is. He is a privilege to have. He is my ultimate pride... A father-son relationship can't be written and even probably understood. But it is pointless to explain now. You will not know me. I wish I could have been with you," Atul wrote.

In problematic statements apparently shaped by his harrowing experience during the divorce proceedings, Atul wrote, "I used to think that women empowerment is probably good and benign like most of the educated men. But It is not so. This movement has gone rogue. This idiotic thing is not going to stop at anything before destroying everything of value and it must end... Those poor men who buy this idiotic philosophy might survive longer but they become slaves who neither feel peace nor live like free men."

"I often laugh when I remember that I started saving money (inflation-adjusted) for a car when you go to college. Silly me," he wrote.

Atul asked his son to remember: "you don't owe anything to anyone". "Don't trust society. Don't trust the system. Both - society and system wants to feed off of you. If my blood wins in you, you shall live, love and fight with all your heart and craft beautiful things and destroy problems with your mind".

Atul Subhash was found dead at his Bengaluru home on Monday morning. A 'justice is due' placard and a 24-page suicide note was found in his room. He has accused his estranged wife Nikita Singhania, mother-in-law Nisha Singhania, brother-in-law Anurag Singhania and his wife's uncle Sushil Singhania of instigating him to die by suicide. Based on his brother Bikas Kumar's complaint, a case of abetment to suicide has been registered against the four.

Senior Bengaluru police officer Shivakumar has said, "His wife and her family members demanded money from him to settle this issue and harassed him. For those reasons, he died by suicide. Based on this complaint, we registered an FIR against the accused. An investigation is underway."

In an 81-minute video, Atul Subhash said he married in 2019 after finding Nikita on a matchmaking website. The couple had a son the next year. He has alleged that his wife's family would repeatedly demand money running into several lakhs. When he refused to give more money, his wife left the Bengaluru home with their son in 2021.

Raging against the law dealing with such cases, Atul wrote in his suicide note, "The more I work hard and become better at my work, the more I and my family will be harassed and extorted and the whole legal system will encourage and help my harassers... Now, with me gone, there won't be any money and there won't be any reason to harass my old parents and my brother. I may have destroyed my body but it has saved everything I believe in."