I, Sharmi, Diamond -Ep-13

1. 13. Sharmi

In a way, former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was also a reason for my life turning upside down. But before that, I must talk about Arjun. No matter how much I tried to push him away, he would somehow find his way to wherever I was. Whenever I felt a prickling sensation on my back, Arjun would be there.

In a way, I felt sorry for him. He always seemed to be wandering around with a guilty look, his eyes filled with defeat whenever he looked at me. During Reshma's sister's wedding, I noticed him watching me from a distance, and I called him over. He came hesitantly. I took him to a room upstairs in the wedding hall, closed the door, and held his hands. They were cold. He quickly pulled them away.

"What do you want? You just want to touch me, is that it? Go ahead… touch me… touch me properly," I said, pulling his hands back and running them over my face, chest, and hips. He forcefully pulled his hands away and started crying. His crying felt strange to me. I just looked at him for a while.

"I… I… didn't think of you like that… please… I feel guilty. That day… that day… sorry… sorry… you know… I love you… so… much… I can't even think of you that way," he said. I didn't know what to say. My own actions felt disgusting to me. Still, I didn't feel any love for him. I always thought that love arising from sympathy only happened in Tamil movies. Without saying anything, I stroked his cheek and walked away. But he never stopped following me.

I set out to talk about the turning point, but I'm talking about something else. Life is like a roller coaster ride. Even though it seems to run on the same track, twisting and turning, the gut-wrenching fear during each drop and the ecstatic thrill during each ascent are always different. Only a very few can endure the ride without screaming, closing their eyes tightly, calling out to God, and facing the wind that whips their faces as adrenaline surges through them. My father, who had risen from very ordinary circumstances to great heights, was brought crashing down, as if he had fallen headfirst from the sky, by a decision the government made at that time.

Finance companies offering 40% or 50% interest had invested all the borrowed money in land and teak trees. At that time, land prices sky rocketed in the city. Places that cost a lakh were now worth ten or fifteen lakhs. The intense competition to invest the huge amounts of circulating money caused the price of everything to multiply tenfold. It became commonplace to hear people saying, "Little Madam has bought this place," "They have bought that place."

The inflated real estate market, unable to bear its own weight, suddenly collapsed. Every finance company started to panic, as the returns on their investments weren't coming. When they tried to sell the land they had bought for fifteen lakhs, they could only get offers for five or six. Without any buyers, the real estate market plummeted into the abyss. As each company defaulted due to their inability to pay interest to the public, the government started arresting the heads of these financial institutions. My father was also arrested.

My father's arrest was repeatedly shown on TV. The house was in chaos with constant phone calls. All sorts of people came—police, local politicians, the media. I stayed at home. It was the only topic of conversation in the newspapers and on TV. They wrote stories about how my father had lived—his affairs with actresses, his trips to Hong Kong. They claimed that he had amassed wealth both in India and abroad in the names of his wife, daughter, and others using the embezzled money. Only we knew the truth. I knew from my mother that we only had the house we lived in, her hundred-odd sovereigns of jewelry, the ECR bungalow, a small amount of land in our hometown, and two cars. But we didn’t realize that all this would vanish in moments. Our reception area, which was always filled with politicians, key figures from the media world, people coming from our hometown for donations, government officials, writers, and businessmen, became empty and desolate. When my mother called people for help in this emergency, half of them didn’t even answer. Some directly told her not to contact them anymore, saying they had their own reputation to protect. Of all the usual visitors to our house, only the lawyer uncle remained, and he began to take advantage of my mother's vulnerable state.

There were daily police investigations, visits to the station and court, unpaid salaries of the staff who worked in my father’s office and pending rent and the officials taking money every time they came and left. The problems kept on getting bigger.

One night, an old man came to our doorstep and started weeping loudly. He said he had invested the money he had saved for his daughter’s wedding, and if he didn’t get it back, the wedding, which was scheduled for the next day, would be called off. He sat down on the street in the December cold, refusing to leave without his money. My mother brought him inside and tried her best to reason with him, but he wouldn’t listen. I felt pity seeing him cry. My mother had nothing left to give him—no jewelry, no money. Even after coming inside, he kept wailing. At one point, his eyes were dry, and only sobs came from him as he repeatedly cried, "My daughter’s wedding… my daughter’s wedding…" Unable to bear it anymore, my mother woke me up and took off the two sovereigns chain from my neck. I cried. It was the only piece of jewelry I had. My mother stubbornly took it and gave it to him, saying, "We don't have any money or jewelry left now. We will definitely return it to you once this problem is over," and she fell at his feet, crying. I don't know what he thought, but he said, "I don't want the jewelry taken from a young girl's neck while she is crying. You haven’t cheated me… God is there. He’s watching everything. He knows you will be alright,” and he quickly left.

Whether it was a blessing or a curse born of desperation, nothing went well after that.

I felt sorry for my father when I saw him in jail. He had become thin, and there were dark circles under his eyes instead of his usual bright look. He spoke with great confidence.

“Even if you invest crores of rupees, how can everyone be paid back if they demand their money back in one night? The government also needs to think about this. We are going to work on this from outside by talking to the other company MDs who are here. Everything will be alright soon. I have asked our lawyer to file for bail. You also help him a bit, baby. Don't be afraid. Everything will be alright. Daddy will be back," he said, stroking my cheek through the bars of the window. It was cold. As soon as his finger touched me, I burst into tears. "See, baby, if you cry… I will also cry. Don't bring baby next time," he told my mother.

From the moment we entered, we had to pay a lot of money as bribes. If we gave less than others, they would say, "What is this, Amma…?" There was no respect in anyone's eyes.

All my friends distanced themselves and hesitated to associate with me. Reshma’s mother had told her not to be with me anymore. I didn't feel like going anywhere.

The lawyer uncle had come to see my mother. I would never go downstairs when they were together. The intimacy he showed towards my mother felt disgusting. The reason I went downstairs that day was because my mother shouted angrily. I only understood why my mother had shouted two days later, when two elderly men stayed at our house overnight. That was when my mother first prostituted herself for my father's sake.