Learning to Forgive the ones who hurt you

(Note - Names of individuals have been changed to protect their identity).

A wise man once told me that life is simply a never-ending sequence of personal and professional problems that you just have to solve. What I've learnt from personal experience is that the magnitude of one problem can totally change the way you see another one. For example, I don't have exam stress anymore, at least not like I used to. Not since my mother died. Exams can be challenging but at least it is something that you can directly control whereas there are so many other heart-rending problems in life that you can simply do nothing to stop. These experiences give you perspective.

With that said, the story I'm about to share today was, in retrospect, a more tame experience compared with the usual crap I've had to deal with in the last 3 years or so. But before we I can jump into things, I need to provide some context.

This was a particularly challenging period in my life. Taking care of my bedridden father meant I needed to earn at least 30-35k per month just to survive (18k for the home nurse, 8-10k for a cook and the rest for medicines/other living expenses). That became a problem when the hospital I was working decided to stop paying me (presumably to quietly force me to quit). Quitting would basically mean forfeiting what I was owed so I started going to 2 other hospitals that provided daily cash in my free time. This meant that I had to run around 3 different corners of Trivandrum 7 days a week. I cut down on all the nonessential expenses from my life. It was more stressful than I probably wanted to admit to myself but little did I know the extent of the problems that would come in the coming months. 

An Unexpected Phone Call

So, there I was at work one day when I received a phone call from Peroorkada Police Station saying that a case had been filed against my father for alleged cheating with regards to an MBBS admission. Well that was clearly not what I needed to hear. Again, this calls for more context.

My father worked as an administrative officer in the college where I would eventually do my MBBS (this was not a coincidence, he had been planning to put me there since I was in plus one). He would manage some important things, like mediate admissions. When he developed a massive stroke suddenly, it was right in the middle of admission season and a lot of problems ensued with regards to admissions but the college staff did a good job with regard to solving it. There wasn't any hint of an issue in recent times. So this was a surprising development for a couple of reasons

  - 1) Why was this issue popping up one and a half years after my father's stroke? Why hadn't this party done any inquiries prior to this?

  - 2) Since I know for a fact that they hadn't tried contacting my father (through me or any other relatives), why are they suddenly jumping the gun to a police case?

My first instinct was that whoever these people were, they were coached by someone for whatever nefarious reason to go down this route. But things were only starting to get cluttered.

I was told by the police to come down and give a statement but they were kind enough to give me a few days because I worked 12 hour day shifts at a hospital where it wasn't easy to find a replacement. A few hours later, a man that we'll just call Mr T called me. Mr T said that he was a "family friend" of this party from the Gulf. So they had this daughter that they had planned to make a doctor. This was a few years ago before NEET came into play. They paid an advance amount to the college through my father (this was normal practice in private colleges, advanced booking would sometimes take place several years before the actual entrance exam). This advance amount was somewhere around 20 lakhs if memory serves me right. But then NEET arrived and the girl in question did not get enough marks to qualify so the admission couldn't happen.

Now, Mr T said that this family was financially quite well off but now wanted money to arrange this girl's wedding (this would partially clear my first question I guess). He said they were reasonable people but would be forced to go to the police if their demands aren't met (I didn't tell him I knew they already were in contact with the police).

Now this was obviously a very complex problem but I figured like some of the old problems that arose in the past, this could be solved through talking. My father had quite significant dementia after his stroke but his memory still remained pretty good. When I asked him about this, he couldn't quite recall this case. When Mr T said he wanted to meet my father, I agreed even though I had to be at work during that time. This was a pretty stupid decision in hindsight from my part.

My father would later tell me that he did recognise Mr T and he assured him that he would help to get back the money from college. So I tried to do my bit by contacting the college administration and informing them of this problem.

Interlude

Now I feel it is important to interrupt the story here for a minute. Yes, this may sound like a son blindly defending his father but I'll try to stick to facts. My father did mediate this money transfer but he most certainly did not steal anything for himself. I know this because

  - 1) We were living in financial cowdung. My father had no savings. We were never a family that lived in luxury. His monthly pay was around 20k and we had a modest life in an old home (which was surprising for some of my classmates/seniors who would visit my house expecting some sort of palace). My mother paid most of the bills while she was alive and I would find out later that she was even paying off a loan my father had taken out. We never ever lived like people who had loads of money. My mother passing away and my father becoming bedridden within the space of a year before I completed my studies meant I was always playing catch-up with money.

  - 2. You could say he lived a double life that none of us ever knew about but I'd put that as highly unlikely at this point. He was a quiet man, didn't drink or smoke and barely socialized outside of family.

  - 3. His job was very important to him. This was not because it was very glamorous or high paying, it was because it gave him a sense of purpose and belonging. You see he was the youngest brother of 3. Both his elder brothers were doctors while he was a college dropout. He made bad investments in some businesses that took years to get sorted. With this job, he was finally somewhat stable and respected. He was certainly not going to do something that would clearly get him fired, that too while I was still studying where he worked.

So basically, my father did not cheat these people.

Now back to the story - 

A Cluttered Mess

There were many problems with trying to solve this issue. Firstly, for people who people who wanted to desperately get their money back, they were very reluctant to actually go to the bloody college office themselves and enquire. It appeared that their idea was to get me to arrange the money from the college for them, which was a gross overestimation of my standing there to say the very least.

Secondly, Mr T would repeatedly remind me over several days not to cooperate with police or give any indication that he was in contact with me which needless to say doesn't exactly build trust.

Again, when you find yourself in a situation you had never been before and never planned to be in, you ask for help. And what I've learnt the hard way over the years is, the people you reach out to when you're vulnerable may not have your best interests in mind.

In this situation, I reached out to 3 people who had 3 very different ideas on how to proceed in this situation.

3 Choices

The first person I talked to was Mr Harry. Now his advise was to bribe the police to crush the case. Now while I appreciate him trying to help and all (in spite of not being able to go 5 minutes without asking if my father did it again and again), this was the wrong choice for the following reasons

  - 1. It's not ethical.

  - 2. It would be an admission of guilt when it was clear in mind that my father did not do any actual cheating.

  - 3. I couldn't even afford an advocate back then. So trying to outmanoeuvre people clearly with much more money and influence than a nobody like myself in this manner was a recipe for disaster in my eyes.

The next person I reached out was again our great hero, Aunt May (https://sutureddreams.blogspot.com/2020/01/how-to-spot-fraud.html?m=1). These days I know better than to trust anything that comes out of her mouth but back then, she was a well respected and very close member of the family and it seemed a safe place to turn to.

Aunt May had her own interests in this case because she too was named in it (she used to work for the college back then). She assured me that there was absolutely no need for me to go to the police and that she would personally sort everything out for me.

Now for someone who was frightened and unsure of what to do, this definitely put me more at ease. But not going to the police was still something I wasn't totally ok with.

Finally, I talked to Dr Peter. He was someone I respected greatly and more importantly had no third party interests in this situation. His advise was simple - talk to the police and sort things out.

So despite Mr T and Aunt May vehemently advising against it, I did go to Peroorkada Police Station to give a statement. Going alone was definitely got me tense since it was the first time I ever saw the inside of a police station. 

Solving your own Problem

I gave my side of the story, more or less what I've said above. I gave a written statement and promised full cooperation from our side. It must be said that the police were very polite and proper in the way they dealt with me (I suppose being a doctor helps). They also lost all interest in me once they understood I had absolutely no role in this.

After a couple of weeks of worrying, I had finally calmed down (for the time being). Looking back, I made the right decision because I learnt later that the only sorting out Aunt May did in all this was to try to wash her own hands off the issue. That was the first of many betrayals that I would get from her that year. And sadly, it was also probably the most benign. 

And this is how it ends

There was still the issue of Mr T and the money. I could only help mediate to a certain degree. I'm a nobody in the grand scheme of this and was never going to be able to solve it for them.

And so he decided to move on to plan B - extortion. He called me and said he had recorded the conversation with my father when he came to my house where he acknowledged that he did deal with them.

I had gotten real pissed by this point and ended the conversation with the following points

  - I don't have nor have I ever taken your fucking money

  - It is not my job to get you your money back

  - If you're going to blackmail a bedridden man with dementia like this well then good luck and fuck you

  (Ok, I didn't actually swear but you get the gist of the conversation).

Somewhat surprisingly, this was the last I ever heard of this problem. I suppose if there is any justice in this world, these people would now go on to bother Aunt May but I don't expect the world to work that way. 

Reflections and Learning to Forgive

There are so many questions about this incident that are left unanswered for me. Why did these people decide to harass me specifically? Was someone guiding them? Did they have another hidden agenda? I have some hunches but I'm fairly content with the fact that I'll probably never know for sure. And those things really don't matter now. I had actually completely forgotten this whole ordeal for a while until the silence of the corona lockdown made my mind wander into old memories.

There were definitely some life lessons to be learnt from this. When you face a difficult situation and there is a choice between cheating to solve the problem, getting someone else to solve it for you and trying to solve it yourself, trying to solve it yourself is always your best bet no matter how scary that may seem. Even close relatives may have hidden motives.

I have also learnt to let go of things with time. Forgiving Aunt May doesn't mean I forget everything and give her a clean slate. It means letting go of the pain that her actions caused me. There is a peace of mind that comes along with that, something much greater than the fulfilment of revenge.