Fight for what is rightfully yours...or for ever hold your peace

Vidya and her husband Bopiah, stood on the steps of the courthouse, giving an interview to the press . It was a historic verdict for Vidya, the Supreme Court had ruled in her favour. She looked across the steps at her father and her step mother, and her father turned away in anger and left the building. It had been a long and hard fight, but finally she got justice. Then members of the press, started asking her questions, and she turned and started to reply to each and every one. “I want to send a message”, she said “ to all the women in this country, that we have equal rights under the law”. She paused, “ Equal rights to inheritance, and more importantly, what is rightfully yours, should never be taken away by anyone, whoever they are”.

The people of Coorg had been a bit divided about the whole affair. Vidya and her husband Bopiah had taken her father Pooviah and her step mother Dechu to court for her share in the property. But when she went to the lawyer, it opened a whole other can of worms. The lawyer found that the property had belonged to Vidya’s maternal grandfather, Somanna, who had left it to his only daughter, Divya, who was Vidya’s mother. Divya had died soon after giving birth to Vidya. Her father Pooviah soon remarried. His second wife, Dechu, was an ambitious, beautiful woman. She gave birth to two sons, and subsequently pushed Pooviah to join politics. His rise was slow, and finally he managed to become an Member of Parliament . Over the years, Pooviah had taken an income from the property and slowly built up his own wealth, a substantial fortune. He lived large, secure in the knowledge that no one would claim this property.

When Vidya got married to Bopiah, it was considered a good match. He was an I.A.S. officer, working in Delhi. The marriage was a quick and small affair. Vidya settled into her new life, blissfully happy. One day she opened the newspapers to read about a historic verdict and a change in the law in India, where the women’s bill had been passed, unanimously in the Parliament. This bill had changed the inheritance laws in the country, women now had equal rights. It got Vidya thinking. She spoke to her husband about it. When she went down to Coorg, she asked her Dad for her share in the property. Her father lost his temper and called her an ungrateful wretch. It got worse, he asked her to leave the house and never come back. Vidya, was so offended, that she went to a lawyer. The lawyer did some digging, and through the clerks records in Coorg, found that the bulk of the property did not belong to her father, but was left in the name of her late mother.

It had been 2 years since the revelation. Vidya’s case went from the lower courts, to the higher courts, finally after changing three lawyers, her appeal went to the Supreme Court, and she won the case. The press had got wind of the situation, it was a very unusual case of a daughter suing her father for her share in the property. The case had been building momentum, as it went along. It had been a long and exhausting battle, but one lesson Vidya learnt was that if you do not fight for what is yours you will never get it.

She turned back and looked directly into the camera, and said “ For years, women in India would rather keep the peace with their families, than ask for what is rightfully theirs, I hope with what happened here, they will get bolder and fight for their rights.”

The Heist

Pooviah woke up in the middle of the night to a sound downstairs, he thought he had heard the breaking of glass. Waking up his wife Kami, he told her that he was going to investigate the sound. Their daughter Rani was getting married in a weeks time and soon the house would be full of relatives and friends who were to come from all over the world.

He saw a beam of light coming from the guest bedroom door. On approaching the door, he decided to alert the thieves of his presence, so loudly asked “Who is there?”, and then repeated it in Kannada. The light immediately went off, and the room was plunged into darkness. He reached inside the door and gingerly switched on the light, but found that there was no power. As he moved further into the room, his foot kicked something soft, so he reached down to see what it was, he found a duffel bag, heavy with some objects. At that instant, something swished past above his head. Only then did he realize that the person or persons were armed. Ducking his head, he charged in the direction of the assailant. He made contact with a body and they both fell heavily with a crash onto the ground. The assailants’ weapon clattered to the ground. In the struggle that followed, Pooviah, tried to grab the man. Unfortunately for him, the assailant was half naked and had oiled his body. The assailant kicked Pooviah in the groin, who let out a cry of pain. Pooviah heard the sound of steps, some one was running out of the room. Even though he was in pain, he pulled himself together, got up and chased after the assailant. What the assailant had over him, was the element of surprise, but what Pooviah had over him, was he knew his house like the back of his hand, so he ran towards the kitchen, to get himself a kitchen knife and cut off the assailants exit from the back door. A torch came on in the dining room, the assailant was trying the windows. Pooviah, heard a loud crash of glass shattering, and the assailant was gone. Pooviah ran to the dining room, to find one window completely broken, and one of the dining room chairs missing. He looked out of the window and he saw in the dark what looked like a man running very fast towards the garage. Pooviah jumped through the opened window, giving chase. He followed the man till the garage, only to find that all the tyres of the cars had been slit. He continued to run behind the assailant, by now yelling on the top of his voice, to awake the farm hands. Soon there were a bunch of men, who had gathered, and started chasing the thief. Finally, one of his men threw what looked like a sickle at the thief, and he fell.

When Pooviah reached the man, now sprawled on the ground, unconcious, he was panting, and trying to catch his breath, when one of his farm hands, reached and turned the man over. Pooviah, was very shocked, he had never seen the man before.

The police were called, and the man was taken into custody. In the lock up, under interrogation, the man confessed. He worked as a teaboy in the village restaurant, and overheard Pooviah giving instructions to the florist about the wedding. He knew that there would be lots of jewellery and money in the house, and decided to try his luck. He befriended the maid, on one of her weekly shopping trip into the village, got a lay of the land, and planned his heist. He was startled to hear Pooviah wake up, the maid had told him that the family was going to Bangalore to finalize some of the preparations. That trip was cancelled by Pooviah, as his brother offered to pick up all the outstanding parcels from Bangalore for him.

The wedding went off without a hitch.