I only wanted to be away from my father
My name is Milind* and I hail from Karnataka. Till the age of four my grandmother took care of me and it was the saddest day of my life when she died. My mother worked for a landlord and he even gave us quarters to live in. I spent three years with my mother. Unfortunately my mother died in an accident when a gas cylinder burst and killed her. That is when my father was forced to take care of me. I was seven when I came to Goa with my father.
My father was interested only in one thing… drinking his life away. He was a daily wage labourer and on most mornings he would still be in bed till late morning. We lived in the fishing village of Betim. He sent me to work every morning with strict instruction to bring back at least Rs. 50 a day. In the evenings he would drink away my earnings and I would go to bed hungry. If I failed to get back enough money then I would get a beating of my life with thick bamboo and I still carry the marks on my head as a legacy of my father. Later he stopped going to work altogether and I had to support him. I worked on the fish jetty, sold fish and ice to other fish sellers. The beatings got more and more severe no matter how much money I gave my father. I began to stay away from home to escape the beatings. I slept in fishing boats during summer and under nets when I got cold.
The fieldworker from Asha Deep brought hope but my father would have none of it. He simply would not let me go to the Shelter. One day the In-Charge came and met my father and convinced him to let me attend the Shelter. For twenty days they took me to the Government school. The staff took me to the doctor and the doctor told us that I was mad. The staff cried at the doctor’s word. Nonetheless, I was given the best of care and all the love I wanted. Anitamother came to the Shelter one day and decided that I should get a proper home and so I found myself in Shekinah House at Assagao. I am here now for the last 4 years and I like it very much.
When I was 10 I went searching for my father with a staff member. It was then that I came to know that he had died due to excessive drinking. I am an orphan now but I have hope and a chance at a future because of El Shaddai. My ambition in life is to become something and not waste this life that God has given me.
*Names have been changed to protect identity.