My name is Gayatri Chatterjee, currently I am 17 years old and my story isn't the kind that you hear often. I am an Indian and was born on 3rd May 2002 in Kolkata, West Bengal. My earliest memories are of the time I was in kindergarten. I lived with three people - my mother and her parents. I was never taken outside to play, never allowed to leave the premises except for school. Then, one day in school I heard about a new member of a family-the father. Apparently this new member was supposed to be an essential component of a family. As a child this new idea was enough to make me start asking questions. Everyday I asked my mother whether I had a father or not and the next few obvious questions. Slowly she started answering my questions and I was forming the picture of a man I never got to know. Irritated with my questions she broke that by simply saying that he was dead... Just when I was starting to include this man in my family, he was pulled out. In class 2, suddenly my handed me the telephone and said that my father was on the line, the same man who was SUPPOSEDLY DEAD long time ago. Well, reality is that I didn't even want to talk to him, I had no feelings for him... One cannot be expected to suddenly feel for another by simply hearing a person's voice for the first time. Then slowly we became best friends! But every six months or so my mother stopped my contact with my father. She even took away the mobile phone that my father gave me, specifically for talking to him. Then, she started poisoning my mind against my father and fanned the developing hatred against him. This led to quite disturbing fights between my father and me. She kept making false stories about my father and with time I started hating him more and more. I loved my mother the most and she made herself the victim of her stories. I felt the urge to avenge my mother ( who I didn't know was lying back then) and kept making mistakes and destroyed my relationship with my father. But just as always, a web of lies is bound to be broken, so did hers. Slowly I noticed her stories changing. I noticed that she told me different versions of the same story. This sowed the seeds of suspicion in me. I desperately hoped that all of it was my imagination and that my mother was not a lier. Most importantly, I didn't want to know that my father was innocent, I didn't want to know that he was the most caring, loving and forgiving father a daughter could ever get. That would make me a horrible person too because of my wrong doings against my father. As expected, the truth came in front of me. I have always been a clean hearted person and it was becoming difficult for me to live with the people who had lied to me all the time. The people who made me do wrong things unknowingly. My actions were making it clear as well, I could not speak to my mother and her parents as I used to. I asked her to own up her mistakes numerous times but then her lies reached a new level altogether. She started lying to me about things that happened in front of me and things that happened with me. That was all I could take, I spoke to my father and asked for his forgiveness for my mistakes. From then I started feeling out of breath living with my mother. After a lot of thinking I decided that I have to leave my mother's place in order to take control of my life. One day on seeing the perfect moment, I called up my father in front of my mother and her parents and told him to take me to his house permanently. I packed up my things and shifted to his house the very next day.

Few points that I missed-1. I was never given first hand clothing, infact I was never even bought toys and sweets which constitute a major part of the lives of children.2. I spent most of my time alone, studying or crying due to loneliness or after getting thrashed by my mother.3. she didn't allow me to go out for tuitions and thus, my father and I were forced to make an arrangement of doing tuitions on weekends at his place from class 7 .4.ever since I started going to my father's place my weekends would be only shopping for my mother as per the list handed over to me by her, and doing tuitions. 5. Even at my father's place I was despised by some ( he was a part of a joint family) , but atleast I knew that someone wanted me, my father...6. meanwhile they were fighting a divorce case, which is still on

Then after my paternal grandmother passed away, my father's joint family broke. With that broke my father's heart, our family had become too small, only two people, my father and me. I felt very sad frequently and each time I met my mother in a public place and ended up having a horrible time, my sadness and loneliness kept increasing...

Every now and then I discover another one of my mother's numerous lies. I can't concentrate on my studies, even though I am hard working and I have the potential to be like the others of my age, my extraordinary problems don't allow me to be NORMAL...

Inspite of having a pet dog, I am utterly lonely and depressed. At times I am in so much pain that my heart feels a horrible mixture of sadness and fear altogether and I am unable to even cry. I start crying in the middle of nowhere, while doing something, walking, talking, it is happening all of a sudden! Earlier these happened when I saw something or heard something which reminded me of my mother, but now it is beyond that. I know that I'm a strong girl, soon to be a woman and I can face the world on my own. But this doesn't change the fact that my childhood was lost, I never got a mother's love, lost a childhood with my father, my peace of mind, a chance to have a normal life, to be able to be like my classmates, grow up to be my mother's best friend, every other thing that a girl is supposed to have, all gone!

This is my story, there are many others who are victims of blunders of adults. I want justice for me and many others like me. This is an issue that people call "private" and tend to avoid. It is time to start asking questions and getting answers. It is time to make a point. A child does not hate his/her parents from birth... they start losing respect, love and affection because of the actions of the parents.

I being a victim myself, seek justice for this pressing issue. I don't know how it'll be served but, something must be done about this. People need to know, be aware and learn.

Sign this petition and save the lives which are not yet destroyed.