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.
Stop trying to send it, the right posture. I’m a dog. I can’t handle this. I just know I’m sick. I don’t know what to do with you. You are too big for me, and I am so out of place I look for you.
What is the background ruler? You’re in my consciousness a healing element all the time. You have your episodes. You’re trying to heal me. You see my pain. I don’t know what to do about it. Not being able to tell my mother that you are good for me is my special cowardness.
She doesn’t understand. She could care less what you feel. Her hatred is so intense it scares me, and why did it suddenly come? She’s not the right person for it, remove you from the scene. She can’t even do it. Okay do I need you?
You are my living defense, no matter what I do to you. You have love in the places I hurt you. Why can’t I do that? Do you know that I’ve thrown you out in the street? I do not place my hand on phone calls. I am through you with you, finished, but I don’t know how to do that. You’re so alive in me. You’re so there.
What do I do about you? I keep asking that question. You are so there for me I can hardly believe it. You can call yourself love.
A fine touch on that consciousness I have started your hand. You will bring him back to you shortly. He loves you so very much. I understand your misgivings about Us. We must seem horrible, and you don’t know the reasons for things, and you don’t know how to tell the muse. It just runs with things and gives them pass. Your hopes and fears are a coloring sensation.
Now what’ve We done here? How have We surrounded you with Nithish? You will greet him you will see him you will be with him in some short meeting on the way. This has got you down because it hasn’t happened and looks like it never will. You think this present attempt has failed, and you’ve started your hunger strike by announcing it on the news, not yet though in your arms.
You’re sure right about one thing: We’ve messed up with Nithish. We don’t know how to lift him. We don’t know how to care for him. There is too much in the way. We don’t work directly on people. We send them influences, suggestions. We don’t make them act. We can do nothing with this boy. He does not field Us. He is too scared and alone, and he won’t listen to you.
That’s texture, and he needs your paste creamy and smooth, like you gave in the lucid dream where you held him so tenderly. Every chance you’ve had with him, you’ve messed it up. You are in the same shape he’s in, unable to handle things, a filibuster, and Sandiya revels in this, like you’ve suddenly lost your mind: “See there! See there!” Is that what the boy thinks? He knows you’re dad. You’re not given any slack. Every mistake you make is exploited for political gain, and it’s not fair.
We’re tryin’ to arrange a room where you and the boy can meet, and there’s no one there yellin’ at yah or tellin’ him what to say. That’s Our next move. Please be patient with Us, as we take these world forces and put them together. They may not work.
This is terrible sweetheart, and I know it, but We’re lendin’ a helpin’ hand. Can you come with Me I’m sorry? You just want the boy in your arms, and we’ve got to get back to a sadhana room. You got so close last time, so very close.
Harm's End 