New Delhi:
When I was born in 1979, I just had the perfect family. My maternal grandfather Sher Singh was a former Central minister, my mother a Sanskrit Reader, my father Mr BP Sharma, a loving and caring person. My father loved me a lot, and my grandparents brought me up with dignity.
The Narayan Dutt Tiwari episode has been a blemish on my otherwise peaceful life. He met my mother while she was teaching at the Daulatram College in Delhi and he was a rising politician in Uttar Pradesh. My grandfather trusted him a lot, and believed in him. What he never realised was the fact that Tiwari was a climber, a power-hungry person.
When I was a child, Tiwari used to come to my place regularly, especially on my birthdays. He brought me expensive gifts from abroad, and played with me. He used to sing a song for me - "
Gunjan (my nick name),
aaja re o mere gunjanu aaja." But whenever we visited his house (we were, however, never allowed to stay there), I saw my mother confronting him, fighting with him over something. At that tender age, I never really understood what they fought over but after he'd left, my mother got very agitated.
At 12, the reality dawned upon me that I am his biological son when I confronted my grandmother; that the person who has loved me, has cared for me for so long, is not my father. I got confused. I thought this was a joke. There were mixed emotions. Some times, I would look in the mirror and compare my eyes, my nose with him. Sometimes I felt happy that I was the son of such a powerful person, but sometimes I felt really sad. Tiwari would come to my school to drop me, but only till the gate. He never met my teachers, or classmates. And those visits slowly became less and less.
I gradually began to realise why we were not frisked whenever we went to meet Tiwari at his residence or office. He was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in the 80s and later headed key Ministries at the Centre like the External Affairs and Finance. My mother used to take me to South Block in Delhi to meet him and even during those busy days, the two fought in the office. She wanted him to announce me as his child, or at least adopt me. But Tiwari refused. And that hurt my mother a lot. She went into depression, suffered asthma attack and was hospitalised.
When my mother started confronting him more often, we received threatening calls. Tiwari's supporters used to call at our place and abused my nanny as well as my mother. "
Agar tumne ye band nahi kiya to ladke ko marwa denge. Jaante ho ND Tiwari kaun hai? (if you don't stop this, the boy will be killed. Don't you know who ND Tiwari is)"
I am blessed to have such family. My grandparents were a huge support. They always stood by me and my mother. After 1991, the fights between Tiwari and my mother increased. He had promised that he would marry her, but he backed off. He had said that he will adopt me but then made an excuse that it will spoil his image. He had come in close proximity of my mother citing his failing marriage and wife's inability to bear a child. But even after his wife's death in 1993, he never agreed to what my mother had wanted.
Things became so bad that after 1995, we were not allowed to meet him. He had asked his bodyguards to not allow us inside his home. That shock was too much for my mother to bear, she was again hospitalised. She had a soft corner for Tiwari.
My mother then started meeting different Congress leaders to do something against him, but no one helped. She never took the legal recourse because she never wanted to ruin my life and career. She wanted to save me from this legal hassle. Tiwari, on the other hand, was aware of all this and that's why tortured my mother.
He has no feelings for me and that hurt me a lot. I developed chronic insomnia, suffered a heart attack. I went to meet him in 2003 when he became the Chief Minister of Uttarakhand. The moment he saw me, and started crying. He said, "
Ye to mere jaisa lagta hai, iski aanken wagerah (he looks so much like me... his eyes)." Tiwari is a movie buff, so he quoted
Trishul, called himself a sinner and started crying. There, I finally confronted him and said this won't work on me. I warned him that I will go to the Congress president, to the President of India and courts if he doesn't give me what is rightfully mine. "Because I don't have limitations like my mother." I hoped that would change or have some effect on Tiwari, but it didn't. When I threatened him, he started abusing me.
My grandparents made one last-ditch effort and went to meet him and ask him to announce me as his son. He respected my grandfather - Tiwari had stayed in his house while executing his political ambitions at a national level. He met them but again refused to do that. Then I decided that it is time to do something and teach him a lesson. Then I filed a petition in the court.
I hope this victory ends this injustice that is meted out to many people like me and paves the way for others to get justice. In fact I was happy to read that a girl in Odisha cited my case and approached the court with a paternity suit against a politician.
My father is still alive, he is 81 years of age. All through my life, he has been very supportive. He gave me his name, and even volunteered to give his blood sample so as to prove that he is not my biological father. I must say this was a very brave step. There was no cohabitation between my father and mother, they were together just for me. The two formally separated in 2005 after mutual consent.
All I can say is this is destiny. My mother never did anything wrong, neither did I. But as the Gita says, things are based on your previous births, your karma. And I believe that is the case. I just feel lucky to have won this case, to have got the support of so many people, and my family. I have learnt to be patient.
I feel happy about my mother, she is vindicated. After the verdict was announced, my mother heaved a sigh of relief and lay down on a bench inside the court. It has been a long battle for her. I touched her feet and we both smiled. It took 2-3 days for the feeling to sink in. My mother trusted this man all her life, and he did this to her. I carried a stigma my entire life.
I think we've just won a battle, the war still remains. But what I liked about this whole legal victory is the fact that from "who is alleged to be his son", Rohit has now become ND Tiwari's son. A change happened.
I don't hold a grudge against Tiwari, neither am I angry with him. But I acted against him because the man crossed all lines of decency. In such a case, you can't sit like a sage, you have to do something so I went to court.
After this judgement, I want to relax for some time because these have been a tiring 32 years of my life. Then I want to go abroad and study comparative law. I'm scarred, I have to recover.
One thing I want to change is the use of words like "bastards", "unchaste", "bad character" dropped from legal work. I have suffered a lot when I heard Tiwari's lawyer using these words for me and my mother. We bow before the judges and consider the Judiciary sacred, so these words should not be used then.
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