One of the reasons I am pouring my heart out today is because I do not want this to happen to anyone else out there.
My son is 25 years of age as of now. He was 13 when I was forced due to certain circumstances to send him to the boarding school at Don Bosco’s Borivali as a paid boarder.
We belong to the higher middle class family and our standard of living speaks highly of our class and dignity. The high demands of the boarding school fee for boarders matched our standard. Hence, I felt assured that my son would be treated accordingly. However I was unaware that there were street urchins who were also sheltered free under the same roof as boarders. I learnt this only later. Hence, I am referring to my son as a paid boarder.
My son endured the unspeakable trauma for 2 long years when finally he could not take it any longer and did the dash to save his life. He landed at my mother’s house late at night.
Today, 10 years later, I got to know the gory story behind the screen that pushed him to taking that step and my heart cries out for him.
He became their target from day one because of his upbringing. He is and always was a good natured child and well mannered.
Jealousy, mentality, insecurity, poverty, is what pushed them into leaving a mark on my son for life.
With a bleeding heart I can only mention a few of the traumatic experiences my son underwent during his two years sentence in that school.
When lights were turned out for the night, a group of boys would creep around his bunk and pull a sack over his head then trash him up just for the heck of it. This frequented two to three times a week.
His bags containing his clothes & shoes were found soaked under the tap in the mornings
His towel was plastered with tooth paste, and his shoes filled with ink.
His home work pages were torn up and pens broken.
He was forced to scrape the insides of the toilet and bathroom with a coconut shell
He would not be allowed to eat any of the goodies I would give him on my weekly visits to him
The list could go on but the hurt is too deep to even recall. All I can say is he told me that at certain times he would sit alone and scream from the pit of his soul.
Where were the authorities at times like this, why were they not bringing these things to my notice on my weekly visits? Is it because ……….
Every time I visited my boy I always found him withdrawn and sad but he never snitched.
After all these years, when I learnt about this from a third person, I begged him to forgive me for putting him through those two years of torture and he says he forgave me a long time ago but the question is:
Can I ever forgive myself for unknowingly subjecting him to this?
Can I let this go unnoticed and let others fall prey to these hidden snares which generally do not surface?
