My Biggest Gain

Turning points are many a times pointers to our biggest gain!

- Rajan RV

It was in 1986 that my parents, who were staying in Mumbai with my younger brother, decided to move to Chennai where I was living. As the eldest son in the family, I was committed to look after them in their old age and I was happy that I was going to fulfil my commitment.

While I was cruising along steadily on the business front and thought I was doing well on the home front too, I was in for a shock. Two years after my parents came to stay with me, my wife Prabha became strangely unsettled. She was obviously depressed.

One night, I returned home from a Rotary meeting to find an envelope on the pillow in our bedroom. It contained a 10- page letter to me written by my wife. She had poured her heart out in the letter in which she complained about my mother, accusing me of being a mama's boy, of listening to my mother more often than I listened to her. The letter talked about her lack of importance in the family because of her dominating mother-in-law. Though it was very interesting to read, I was shocked.