By Mihir Srivastava
Ujjwala Tiwari was seated upright on a sofa, and I settled in front of her on a wooden chair to have a face-to-face conversation about her eventful life. The natural light from the large glass door that opened into the balcony filled the room.
She is an independent woman who took some unusual decisions not in consonance with societal norms. And knowing that she has suffered a lot and revisiting the past would be like scraping old wounds, I presumed this to be a difficult conversation to have. But she seemed unperturbed, composed, and open to talking about the past.
Her second son, Rohit Shekhar, was born out of wedlock in 1979. He grew up to fight a protracted legal battle with success to get his biological father, Narayan Datt Tiwari, to accept him as his son in a seminal case. They lived happily for four years. A year after Narayan’s demise in 2018, when their life was limping back to normalcy, Rohit was smothered to death by his wife in cold blood. Tragic!
Ujjwala tells her story in a monotone, without betraying emotions. As if she is reading aloud her own biography. She wasn’t even 18 when got married to Bimal Prasad Sharma. Their son, Siddhartha, was born in 1968. It was around this time she came to know that Bimal was already married to another woman at the time of their wedding. This piece of information damaged her marriage with Bimal.
Ujjwala is a daughter of a renowned politician, Professor Sher Singh, who played a key role in the formation of Haryana, which was carved out of Punjab in 1966. Narayan, a young politician in the mid-1960s, was a regular at Sher Singh’s home. Ujjwala and he became good friends, and the friendship flourished into a relationship. “He initiated it,” asserts Ujjwala. Narayan was also not happy in his marriage and wanted a child.
Their relationship was an open secret known to their families and friends. “Anyone who was close to us knew about the courtship,” she says stoically. Though, she did not live with Narayan or for that matter, also with Bimal. A lecturer of Sanskrit at Daulat Ram College–Delhi University, she was economically independent and a master of her destiny. Her two sons, Siddhartha and Rohit, were ten years apart and sons of two different men. The elder brother mentored the younger. There was no ill will amongst them.
Narayan was a soft-spoken and handsome man with pleasing manners and a charismatic persona. He was a popular leader, respected even by his political rivals and bureaucracy for his administrative acumen. He was one of those rare politicians who served with dedication and distinction and there were occasions when he was a contender for the top job–prime minister. He served with distinction as a union minister and multiple times chief minister of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
Narayan promised Ujjwala that he would accept their son. He went back on that promise, for his coterie of followers, who had a vested interest in his being an issueless man, discouraged him from doing it. “It will ruin your political career” they warned him. Ujjwala got the feeling that Narayan was wary that a marriage would be at the cost of his ‘independent life.’
Despite this, they kept meeting. The children grew under his shadow. Narayan was very fond of both Rohit and Siddhartha. So was Bimal. Rohit and Siddhartha were close to both Bimal and Narain. There was no secrecy. Rohit called Bimal his “foster father” and not a “stepfather”. Narayan acknowledged to Ujjwala that he was “aap ka doshi (her culprit).”
Bimal blamed himself for their failed marriage. He conceded it was wrong on his part not letting Ujjwala know about his first marriage. She came to know much later that Bimal was married as a child and the marriage was never consummated. Had she known it earlier, “I would have perhaps not got into another relationship.”
All said and done, this complicated arrangement, despite the inherent contradictions, continued, things went on, and the years rolled by. It’s commendable that there isn’t any bitterness, perhaps, because each of them empathised with each other and their situation in life. And, in some measure, respected what they did to deal with it. Ujjawal is full of praise for both Bimal and Narayan.
Rohit came to know about his biological father when he entered his teens. Something changed in him. When he became a young man, just over 20 years, he decided to fight for what was his ‘legitimate’ right. He wanted his father to recognise him as his son in public. And nothing less than that would do. He was not okay with mere ‘adverse inference’-or a legal inference is drawn from silence or the absence of requested evidence.
Rohit was of the firm view, and rightly so, that a child is never illegitimate. He can’t be faulted for the circumstances under which he was born. After a long legal battle, DNA fingerprinting was carried out and it was established what was already known that indeed Narayan was the father of Rohit.
And his parents' relationship stood the test of time, was not a fling or a night’s stand. However, Ujjwala stopped going to Narayan when “I saw my son disturbed about the whole episode.”
Even though the legal battle lasted for many years, still there was no animosity. Ujjwala recounts that the paternity tests were done in Hyderabad, Narayan was the governor of the state. He could have got the report manipulated. He didn’t do it. When the court pronounced them father and son, he readily accepted Rohit. And even proposed to marry Ujjwala. Narayan was concerned about the social fallout on Ujjwala now that it was established: he was the father of her second son Rohit. This backlash will only stop if they take nuptial vows. Narayan was 89 years old and his bride, Ujjwala, was 70 years of age at the time of their wedding.
The three of them lived happily for four years as a family. Narayan was in bad shape health-wise, was being administered sleeping pills, and couldn’t function unaided. All that changed.
This could have happened a couple of decades earlier had Narayan accepted Rohit as his son. Perhaps, he was concerned about the repercussions on his political career. Ujjwala regrets that things would have been different, and much better, had he accepted “us as a family. He would have been a prime minister—fulfilled his ambition,” says Ujjwala. Rohit was Narayan's only child.
After all, former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a political contemporary of Narayan, lived with his foster family for decades. “Family is the best support system and a must for public life,” explains Ujjwala.
But there was a silver lining too. This paternity case is revolutionary, a break from the past, where technology was employed to establish fatherhood. And is being quoted all over the world. This is Rohit’s contribution who was murdered at the age of 39 by his own wife. He died before he could be a father. Siddhartha didn’t marry. Bimal’s nephew’s family lives with Ujjwala and Siddhartha. He’s almost like a son.
All these years later, there are some regrets but no acrimony. A numb sadness engulfs the room. Siddhartha walks in towards the end of the interview, listens to the chit-chat, and adds rather dejectedly in his high baritone voice, “sab khatam ho gaya (all is over)”
This is a modern family. The woman of the house chooses the love of her life even if it meant breaking the shackles of the institution of marriage. Yet, they all lived in harmony.
Excellent narration without any prejudice 👏👏👏