I will not speak.
My inability to speak
keeps this bottled up inside me
so I don’t feel it.
Do you trust me?
Some day
I will touch this pain again
and tell you how much I love you my very precious daddy.
I cannot do that now.
I’m sorry.
It hurts too much.

Signed, Nithish

Okay world,
you got your answer.
The boy will not stand up for me.
He will simply let me die
without saying a word,
if I choose to do a hunger strike.
That is powerful pain
I have to deal with,
my boy’s denial of me
when I am doing everything I can to help him,
as I promised I would
when I spoke to you on the phone Nithish,
not long ago.
Has it only been two weeks?

Okay Sandiya what can I say but I’m sorry?
I made a very big mistake
in challenging your pride,
and no there was no blackmail
with the intention of putting you or your husband in jail,
no matter what the boy said
the day you took him from my home.
He was confused.
Throughout these two months,
in everything I’ve done,
in everyone I’ve spoken to,
I did not try to put you in jail.
I made no attempt to file a case
of any kind.
The video lies there unopened.
It’s never been used to get you arrested.

Will you please forgive me?
If not for me,
then for the sake of your son?
He needs me and you know it.
His heart is a battlefield,
and he’s just lost a major battle of the war.
You don’t understand love,
how it can’t be killed,
and it only hurts your child to try.

Do you know how much time together we have spent?
Many years of his childhood,
formitable years,
influential years.
We have been so together for so long,
and he can’t just wipe that out of his life,
like it never happened.
It’s too big a hole in his childhood.
He can’t get rid of it.
What you are asking of him is too much,
and it is too cruel.

I can only ask you again to forgive me
for this boy’s sake.
Where does this go?
Let me see him,
and we can avoid this drastic measure
I’m about to take.
Can you see that?
Can you see that with your heart?

After all the years we’ve spent together Sandiya,
since you yourself was 12,
you do not want to let me die
refusing to allow me just two hours alone with your son,
after all that we’ve been through together
for so long.
Please Sandiya listen.
For God’s sake listen,
and let us avoid catastrophe,
let us avoid more pain.
Lay down your arms,
and I lay down mine,
and let us make peace
for children’s sake,
and I do not have to lay down my life
for the sake of this boy.
It is not just me seeing him;
it’s about letting Nithish be Nithish,
what I will truly be fighting for.

Will you accept my apologies?
And we can move on,
get through this,
and give Nithish what he truly needs,
and he needs both of us for that future.
Listen to his English.
Listen to his ideas,
his manner of speaking,
his manner of thinking.
That is my stamp upon him not yours.
You are not an intellectual
nor someone culturally refined.
I am sorry but you aren’t.
I have sophisticated this boy,
cultured him,
in things that are the high pass of humanity,
and I have shown him God
reaching down into his life,
and I have shown him the opening
to the well of soul.

Listen to his poetry very carefully,
and you will not find the stupidity of a child.
That is not a baby there
rattling off
with no will of his own.
It is a very alive and mature soul
wanting this boy to fulfill his purpose
to manage his destiny,
and that is not my destiny nor yours.
It belongs to Nithish alone.
Grant that to him
and let us pass
this brush with death.
I beg you Sandiya.
What else can I do?

I can give him America
and U.S. citizenship
and what his future could do with that,
anywhere in the world.
You can’t give him that.
You are limited to India
for this boy.
Why can’t I open up the world to him?
Because you need him to fulfill your life?
Isn’t that what you told him I wanted him for?
Please Sandiya,
think on yourself.
Doing evil to me with no goodness involved
is a grave sin,
and it will haunt you
for the rest of your days
if we cannot make amends,
and my death will be between you and Nithish
even unto the afterlife,
if you let me die and do not let him to speak.

Let us put his future together,
as I am not a mean man,
unlettered.
I have the college education you want for him,
and I have the experience of an unusual and varied lifetime
that reaches for humanity’s heart.
I do not believe you are filled with so much hate you will let me die.
I do not,
and I stake my life on that belief.
It is not my folly that I hunger strike.
It is your folly,
your heartbreaking refusal to let the boy and I see each other.
Okay Sandiya,
where do we go from here?
It's for Nithish.