Where Shadows Learn To Dream

Echoes Of a Distant Grief

Raghav

I hate him. That much is true. Mr. Shekhar was never a father to me, and I wasn’t exactly born into a loving family. My mother died in childbirth, and instead of looking at me with the love and warmth any parent should feel for their child, all he saw was the reason she was gone.

I was shipped off to boarding school when I was seven. The house, the family, the life that most boys grow up with—it was all denied to me. Every birthday, every holiday, every moment a father should share with his son, he left me alone. He couldn’t be bothered. I was just a reminder of what he lost.

Then, as if the gods enjoyed their twisted irony, my half-brothers—his other sons, the ones he adored—died in an accident. All of them. Every last one. I wasn’t there, since I was away at school. While they died, I survived, and he never forgave me for that.

It’s not that I wanted them to die, but I also won’t apologize for surviving. How could I? It wasn’t my fault. But my father, Mr. Shekhar, could never look at me without resentment. He barely spoke to me after that. Maybe he wished I had been with them, in that car, so I could’ve been wiped away with the rest of them. Then, he could have had the perfect narrative of a broken, grieving father. But I lived, and that ruined everything for him.

He had built everything around his own ego, his own success. Everyone else was disposable, including me.

Over the years, I watched him grow older, more desperate, grasping for control. He remarried, time and time again, as if new wives and families could fill the void. They didn’t. He never cared for any of them, not really. They were just extensions of his wealth and power, ornaments for his ego. And each time he brought a new woman into this house, I felt more and more detached from this place, from this life.

But here’s the thing: I didn’t just sit back and accept it. I used every resource I had to make something of myself. I built a life without him, something real, something of my own. And now that I’m back, I’m not here to beg for his approval or forgiveness.

My father wasn’t always like this. I’ve heard stories from the old servants about how he used to be, back when my mother was still alive. She was his first wife, and from what I’ve gathered, the only person he ever truly loved. They say her death shattered something in him. After she was gone, he changed. He fell in with a bad crowd—men who dealt in shady businesses, who taught him how to use power, fear, and money to control everything around him. That’s when he became Mr. Shekhar, the ruthless man I’ve come to know. The loving father I could have had died with her.

Let him resent me all he wants. I’ll be the one to walk away victorious.