Happy Birthday Lavanya

In the beginning, we were together, briefly.

Dear Daughter Lavanya,

Today is your third birthday. Just like the first and the second, I am absent.

No one will think of asking us what we wish. You; too young to know or remember me and I too trapped by Indian law and legal system to get my rights as your father. Which includes breaking the blockade your grandfather, grandmother and mother have thrown around you. May you never find out their true nature, for it is masked from you by genuine delight in your existence. Just their hate makes them deny the same delight to your father.

Your first birthday, mother and cake.

I never saw you start talking, walking and become a personality on to yourself with a name and an identity. If we were to meet, you would have to be introduced to me. You see, you do not know your father since you achieved cognition.So as you grow, and I remain increasingly apart, there is but one thing I would like to do.

Since I cannot be around to be a father, I would like to leave you in far more capable hands than mine. Jesus is your father. Since I cannot be around, I pray on this third birthday that he may take care of you in your life and that you may know him as your father. He is my God.
I believe in him by choice, not by birth or compulsion. All I know is, my God suffered.
May God always bless you, my dear child. I love you so much it hurts. So much so that I feel grateful to have stayed alive to write this to you today.

Be all you want in life. End all you wish in life.

Always,
- Arunesh