Dad and Daughter: 2

By M K Devidasan

Riya, the 11th standard student of Flying Officer Jayaprakash, had a guilty feeling of being the root cause of the heart problem,Radha of tenth standard, the daughter of their servant staying in the servant’s quarters inside the Air force station, experienced while working in the garden along with her. When she came to know that Radha was to be operated upon to set her heart alright, which was costly, she decided to offer maximum possible financial help to that family and requested her father Jayaprakash who expressed his inability as his funds were exhausted in their house construction.
When Riya talked of this to her friends in school, they guided her to an advertising company where she was offered high remuneration, but she had to refuse that once she knew that they wanted her to be almost nude in lingerie advertisement.
Riya was fascinated by a TV quiz program “become millionaire through intelligence” and had been replying to the weekly questions to the public, during the program, and she got a call for an audition. In that, she performed well and was selected.
Riya was to report for the TV program shoot on a Sunday. Along with her mother and brother, Riya went to the designated location for the shoot. Her father Jayaprakash could not accompany her as he had to be available at the station for special work, in view of the impending visit of their Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief.
The super star invited all contestants, one by one, and they had to face the fast finger test. Riya was selected as she was ranked first, taking least time to respond to the question that appeared on the screen, correctly in least time.
Riya was ushered into the hot seat by the super star and answered all questions one by one, and reached the second safe zone of 12.5 lakhs with ease, not using any of the life lines. When the super star asked her of the plans of utilisation of the entire money, she spoke of the help she planned towards the operation expenses of Radha and said the rest will be given to father with request to buy one car, which they could not possess till then.
Jayaprakash got theinformation from Riya of her success and exploded the news to his superior officers and got permission to reach home early with intention to receive them and left office at 12.30 with two packets of sweets.
When he opened the front door and entered his room, found Radha lying on his bed motionless. The unexpected sight jittered him and he cried aloud. He tried to give her artificial mouth to mouth inhalation and cardio pulmonary resuscitation, which was seen by the neighbours and the servants, arrived responding to his cries, mistaking to be strangulating her after satisfying his lust.
When Riya came back with mother and brother, she saw Jayaprakash being taken by the police, handcuffed. She heard her father repeatedly begging the authorities of his innocence, but the eye witness’s statements were good enough to disregard anyone’s mercy pleas.
A must-read story by every child to enthuse their inherent qualities of compassion and undeterred affection, over and above the investigative born instinct.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M K Devidasan
• Release date: Dec 3, 2020

M K Devidasan

M K Devidasan is a graduate engineer in Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering  with Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management. He had served the Indian Air Force for 32 years as a technical officer and retired as a Wing Commander.

Book preview

Dad

&

Daughter- 2

Saved from Gallows

Novel by

M K Devidasan

RGEF Books

Thrissur - 6807132

Kerala, India

[e-mail]

Preface

I was enthused to make this product from the workshop of my imaginative world, based on my observations on a girl, born and brought up in a defense environment, whose attachment towards the parents was beyond immeasurable levels, as a sequel to my earlier work, Dad and Daughter, which is planned to be serialized. The inborn bondage with immeasurable affection and compassion cannot be fabricated or made to be germinated using any kind of power – either muscle or financial – but have to be born with the genetic gift. Children born to the same parents possess different characteristics in their routine or special behavior, the reasons for which is yet to be found out and is beyond human capability and imagination.

The technological advancement and craze for comfortable living at high standard have kept the value of relationship aside, encouraging and prompting children to keep their old parents, who were the catalyst for their development and furtherance, to old age homes to fend for themselves, have become unobstructed and routine, which calls for discussion and condemnation. Why does this happen? Even in the present scenario, there exists a minuscule number who attribute paramount value to the human relationship and bondage and sacrifice their well-cherished desires to fly beyond the horizon, in search of an oasis. Surely, once these children become parents with grown-up children, they are sure to receive similar treatment as their children had grown up realizing the value of love and compassion from childhood. On the other hand, whoever deposits their parents at old age homes cannot expect and will not be eligible for better treatment from their children, once they reach the same bracket of old age with multiple physical incapacitations.

Prologue

Riya, the 11th standard student of Flying Officer Jayaprakash, had a guilty feeling of being the root cause of the heart problem, Radha of tenth standard, the daughter of their servant staying in the servant’s quarters inside the Air force station, experienced while working in the garden along with her. When she came to know that Radha was to be operated upon to set her heart right, which was costly, she decided to offer maximum possible financial help to that family and requested her father Jayaprakash who expressed his inability as his funds were exhausted in their house construction.

When Riya talked of this to her friends in school, they guided her to an advertising company where she was offered high remuneration, but she had to refuse that once she knew that they wanted her to be almost nude in lingerie advertisement.

Riya was fascinated by a TV quiz program become a millionaire through intelligence and had been replying to the weekly questions to the public, appeared on screen during the program, and got a call for an audition. In that, she performed well and was selected.

Riya was to report for the TV program shoot on a Sunday. Along with her mother and brother, Riya went to the designated location for the shoot. Her father Jayaprakash could not accompany her as he had to be available at the station for special work, because of the impending visit of their Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief.

The superstar invited all contestants, one by one, and they had to face the fast finger test. Riya was selected as she was ranked first, taking the least time to respond to the question that appeared on the screen, correctly in the least time.

Riya was ushered into the hot seat by the superstar and answered all questions one by one, and reached the second safe zone of 12.5 lakhs with ease, not using any of the lifelines. When the superstar asked her of the plans of the utilization of the entire money, she spoke of the help she planned towards the operation expenses of Radha and said the rest will be given to the father with a request to buy one car, which they could not possess till then.

Jayaprakash got the information from Riya of her success and exploded the news to his superior officers and got permission to reach home early to receive them and left the office at 12.30 with two packets of sweets.

When he opened the front door and entered his room, found Radha lying on his bed motionless. The unexpected sight jittered him and he cried aloud. He tried to give her artificial mouth to mouth inhalation and cardiopulmonary resuscitation, which was seen by the neighbors and the servants arrived responding to his cries, mistaking to be strangulating her after satisfying his lust.

When Riya came back with mother and brother, she saw Jayaprakash being taken by the police, handcuffed. She heard her father repeatedly begging the authorities of his innocence, but the eye-witnesses’ statements were good enough to disregard anyone’s mercy pleas.

Was Riya convinced of her father’s plea of innocence?

If so, will she be able to find ways to save her father from the legal formalities, thereon?

-1-

It was a Thursday and Sujatha woke up in the morning at five-thirty, as she was aware of the weekly practice parade which was to be attended by husband, Flying Officer Jayaprakash. At that Air Force Station, the weekly parades were held every Thursday and the Station Commander, Group Captain Shukla was particular of everyone’s attendance. In case of sickness, the instructions given to the station officers and men were that their absence from the parade, for any reason, would be noted and to avoid disciplinary action in case of sickness, the medical certificate from the doctors from the Station Sick Quarters should be produced to the concerned authorities before the cessation of the working hours of the day. To escape from such unpleasant incidences, everyone at the Station was particular to reach the parade ground much before 7 o’clock, the stipulated time of assembly after drawing their weapons from the Station Armoury. On usual working days, Jayaprakash used to leave the quarters at seven-fifteen to reach the office at seven-thirty, the normal commencement of working hours. On parade days, he usually left the house at six-thirty.

Before Jayaprakash came to the dining hall, Sujatha prepared poori and subji and laid on the table to avoid his leaving to parade ground without breakfast with the excuse of getting late. Riya, their daughter, helped Sujatha in the kitchen to get everything ready much earlier to appease her father. When Jayaprakash came to the dining hall, in neatly ironed uniform with full webbing and medals, wearing the peaked cap, Riya ran to him and admired his smartness. She ran to her room to bring the mobile to take photos, asking him not to sit for breakfast.

She took a few snaps and showed him and got appreciations.

Why do you take photos every week? Aren’t you mad to fill your mobile memory with the same type of photos? He smiled and taunted her.

With a chuckle, she moved close to him and said. I want to examine the weekly changes in your degree of smartness in uniform.

Rubbish! You are unnecessarily wasting my time and also yours.

She smiled. This time you look smarter than earlier. I will send these photos to my friend Maya, on WhatsApp.

For what? He sat for breakfast and she served. While eating, he said, Only a few more days are left for your 11th standard exam. You know, CBSE 11th standard exam will be tough to screen the students. You must be top in the class, as you had been performing in earlier classes.

Don’t worry daddy. I will never let you down. During the vacation, I will join coaching classes for my entrance She chuckled. I will get a good rank there also. I promise.

Jayaprakash looked at her with pride and smiled. I Know. You are hardworking like me. Looking towards the bedroom side, he said. The other one, your brother Vinay, is like your mother. Lazy to the core, and manages mere pass marks.

Riya took that as credit and chuckled expressing happiness. No daddy, he works hard. He will also score good marks in the forthcoming exam, as he had been doing. She tried to defend her brother.

After breakfast, when Jayaprakash hurried to pick his briefcase, Riya ran outside with his helmet and waited for him near the motorcycle.

Wearing the helmet, as he was mounting onto the motorcycle, she said, daddy, you should buy a car. In this camp, every officer has a car, except you.

He looked at her and smiled. Yes, we should. Next year, we will take a loan and buy one. Ok?

Riya nodded with a smile and saluted. Ok, sir.

Jayaprakash started the motorcycle and proceeded to the Station Armoury to draw the revolver.

At seven-thirty, both Riya and Vinay got ready and prepared their bag for school. Before going out, both moved to Sujatha and kissed her. They proceeded on bicycles towards the guard room, where