The tragedy of Vijayshree

An interesting and tragic case, here divorce laws appear to have gone horribly wrong. That is why my consistent advice in these forums has been to shun vindictiveness during divorce and try to get complete custody of the child even if it means having to 'buy off your ex husband'. This is what Michael Jackson did when the paid money to his ex-wife to give up custody. However the younger generation of women in India cannot resist the urge to hit back legally during divorce and try to claim maintenance. This attitude of revenge rarely hurts the ex-husband and might backfire badly on the woman and children. Here is what happened to Vijayshree:

"The article claims that Vijayasree, 39, "stole" her son and has been on the run for more than a year now. The article in a prominent Indian newspaper, seemed quite unlike a report; it literally "convicted" Vijayasree and paints a horrible picture of the woman being a demon of sorts. It is claimed that after a marital discord and court battle, she already separated from her husband, Viayasree fled the US with their son, Aditya. She is claimed to be obsessed with her child and suspects that Ravi, her husband was molesting the child. Of course, these claims are un-substantiated and there were attempts to counsel her.

I am more concerned with both the mother and the child now than the amount of truth in the report. What would a single mother without a job, almost no identity (she has to constantly hide it as there is an international kidnapping charge on her) and no source of income. Imagine the plight of the child who is all of six years old who is traveling across the Indian contient in taxies and staying in seedy hotels to not attract attention. He doesn't get to attend school for his mother's fear of being caught. She clearly suffers acute paranoia.

I can't imagine the fear and anxiety gripping the terrified mother who is making the decision of hiring taxies, catching buses and choosing nondescript hotels, just in a bid to spend that one extra day, an extra hour with her son. Obviously, the courts have virtually sounded a death-knell about she being able to be in touch with the child she loves so dearly. She has been diagnozed to be suffering from fear psychosis and acute paranoia and having suicidal tendencies. Something tells me that though there may be a problem, her husband obviously has had access to better lawyers in the US (he is apparently a scientist) who have done a good job of painting a picture of the mother being a monster.

What can one do, when a mother is pushed to a corner and all doors of options are closed for her. Now, even if the father offers some reconcilliation, what guarantee does she have? He has managed to set up an international manhunt supported by the Supreme Courts of both India and the US, websites that implicate her and talk about her attrocities and has managed to have the media on his side. He even has a detective agency trying to hunt her (read his son) down. Worse, he also seems to have her parents, friends and relatives on his side. He is even suspecting her of having murdered her son! I fail to understand why on earth, if the mother would want to kill her own son after she made a choice to take him away with her to "protect" him. Now, where can you imagine she can go but nowhere?

The situation was turned worse by Ravi by getting too aggressive and using his position of power (relatively, compared to his ex-wife) to narrow her options one by one until a stage where she has none. Honestly, the situation calls for an immediate withdrawal of charges by the ex-husband and taking a reconciliatory position via the media and trying to reach her via her most trusted friends or relatives. That, if Ravi really wants a better future for his son and wants him to have a normal life with school, friends and known people around him, he has to open some of the closed doors and get Vijayasree to see that first, her son is safe and second, she has access to him and third, she is not going to be sent away to some mental asylum."

In the story mentioned above, some interesting facts are worth noting (don't know this personally, so much of my writing is speculation)
--> During the initial divorce in 05, vijayshree appears to have gotten partial custody and child support.
--> Either due to bad legal advice or financial difficulties or due to husbands lack of cooperation, vijayshree did not ask for full custody without child support
--> She failed to honor visitation rights given to ravi without understanding the consequences
--> In 08 ravi got complete custody due to this
--> Vijayshree panicked that she would lose her son and decided to take him away to India
--> In India she failed to file for child custody, complicating her situation

My hunch is that she was not thinking clearly during the divorce about the consequences of agreeing to joint custody. If she wanted her son that desperately, she would have been better off paying her ex-husband money and asking him to give up custody, aka. Michael Jackson.

Hi rosequeen,

It sure is a tragic case. I pity the child the most. However whatever the statistics, law etc might be I feel it is unfair to the child to deny motherly or paternal love especially when the parent is alive. This was the single most important thing that made me work on my marriage when it was on rocks trying all avenues for success. The question I always had in my mind was "what right did I have to deny my child of a wonderful father however bad he might be as a husband". The child will question the whereabouts of the absentee parent when growing up. If the child knows that the parent deliberately tried to keep away the other parent it is very much possible that when the child reaches a certain age he will turn against the parent that holds primary custody. I saw this happening to a close friend of mine and a cousin of mine. Both of them could not get over what their mothers did and got in touch with their fathers when they were in their mid 20s.

Thanks,
Kavya.

Originally Posted by rosequeen

My hunch is that she was not thinking clearly during the divorce about the consequences of agreeing to joint custody. If she wanted her son that desperately, she would have been better off paying her ex-husband money and asking him to give up custody, aka. Michael Jackson.

Rosequeen,

What makes you think that one parent will willingly give up custody of his or her child in exchange for a large sum of money? You have mentioned in many threads that one ex-spouse should 'buy out the other'. Maybe some parents do not care and will be willing to give up access to their child completely for $$$ but many others won't and will fight to see their child regularly.

You seem to be thinking from the point of what is more 'convenient' for one of the parents as opposed to what is in the best interests of the child(ren). Unless one parent is abusive / negligent, then s/he has EVERY right to have access to his or her child. Attempting to buying an ex-spouse out merely because one does not want to have deal with him or her in the future seems to be immoral and unfair to me. Why should a parent give up his or her child and why should a child be denied parental love just because one person believes that it is inconvenient for him or her to have his or her ex-spouse still in his or her life (by virtue of having children with the ex-partner)?

If Vijayashree did in fact attempt to abduct her son, and denied her ex-husband visitation rights, then she deserves to face the music.

EOS.

Rosequeen

I am with Maylatha on this.

Vijayshree deserves to face the music as she fled with the child before final hearing for the case was suppose to take place. Today only I read in the newspaper about it.

I was bit shocked to know that she use to live in a hotel for three days and then shift. Is she not causing more harm to the kid than good. Moreover, I wonder, how she is managing to pay for these stays food etc.

Since, I don't know the circumstances under which she sort divorce, but what she did now is wrong. One can't justify ones own wrong doing because the other person is wrong.

There has been many case studies on the sufferings of the NRI husbands when wives left for India with the child and lodged dowry cases. I understand there are many atrocities being inflicted on women but then there are many women who abuse law.
My two cents
Ansh

Even I had read about this case and felt sorry for the lady. Men can be quite vindictive and spiteful ,they generally have better resources and lawyers than the wife who is ignorant of legal matters and has to fight the case on her own with little or no money if she is a housewife.

The MJ case quoted saying that he paid for the custody of his kid has some more to it . It seems MJs nurse was the one who bore his child and it was agreed upon that she would not ask for custody and would be paid for her efforts.
Money cannot be the only criteria but yes demanding maintenance is fair as a woman spends/wastes her valuable years giving birth to kids and setting up a house for the man and the next moment she is thrown out of the house without the kids! All women are not lucky to be holding good jobs and rich enough to pay off ex husbands !!

Demanding maintenance or alimony makes a man think twice as he will have to pay for spoiling a girls life , its definitely good to teach a lesson to MCPs and make them pay through their nose.
Poor Vijayshree has turned into a basket case becuz she fears that her child will be taken away from her, her family is also to be blamed who are supposedly siding with the husband ,she also did not get proper guidance in legal matters. Maybe she did not have the money to get a good lawyer and is suffering today. She is in the wrong due to her ignorance of legalities.
Some womens organisations should help her regain her health and get an amicable settlement reached as she is no state to take care of her child right now.

Flowerlady,

Vijayashree is a post graduate from Purdue University and was working as a software engineer when the couple decided to divorce. So, she was neither an ignorant and uneducated woman nor was she a helpless housewife who was victimized by a rich and powerful husband.

She was, in fact, given primary custody immediately after the divorce. Her husband only received about 8 days' visitation in a month. But she could not give him even that time with his child. When he fought back, by taking her back to court to enforce his visitation rights, she simply kidnapped the child and moved from place to place like a fugitive, simply to prevent the ex from ever seeing his son, endangering her own child's physical, social and emotional well-being in the bargain.

You may not like your ex-husband, but your likes & dislikes have NO bearing on him as the father of your child. From everything that I read and see (he was interviewed by Vijay TV), Dr. Chandran comes across as a wonderful and loving father, even if he may (quite possibly) have been a horrendous husband.

I also agree with Malyatha.

Rosequeen, you are taking pity on the mother... but what about the dad? What must it be like for him not to know whether his son is ok, whether he is scared or being taken care of, that too knowing his ex-wife has mental issues? Kids need their DAD just as much as they need MOM. And for this woman to put her kid right in the middle of all the chaos was ridiculous. The law is clear... you CAN NOT run away with your kid and leave your spouse helpless.

He even has a detective agency trying to hunt her (read his son) down. Worse, he also seems to have her parents, friends and relatives on his side

If I had a child, and my dh ran away with him/her, I too would do anything possible to get my kid back... that includes a detective agency! It's not called 'hunting down', it's called 'parent wanting their kid back'. There are usually two sides to a story... the fact that the woman's parents and friends are on the husband's side says a lot. Probably they feel the same way I do... that you can't take the law into your own hands and kidnap a child!

I can't imagine the fear and anxiety gripping the terrified mother who is making the decision of hiring taxies, catching buses and choosing nondescript hotels, just in a bid to spend that one extra day, an extra hour with her son

This is another weird example of Indian parents taking obsession with their kids to the extreme. ...one extra day... one extra hour.... you know what that type of thinking that is? It's not love, it's posessiveness. Taking the kid away from his school and friends, away from DAD, living in cheap hotels, jumping around from city to city... that can only come from selfishness/posessiveness. If this mother had put her son's needs above her own wants, she would have realized the best thing to do was settle things through the legal system, work things out with her spouse, and never let her own marital problems impact her child.

Title of this thread is One Sided and Wrong.

It should be "Tragedy of a young kid".

We never know who is at fault here. Why? One is fighting to get his son back and other is on the loose. We would know the reasons only when they are in the same room and the kid is safe.

Until then there is no point in taking sides.

But one thing for sure. SHE IS AT FAULT and there is no justification to it.

Woman - Running away and taking the kid along with her.

If she is so concerned, she should have put all the energy running around to fighting it out in the court. Why didn't she? She was educated right?

For sure, her custody is gone if she comes out in the open :P :P. She brought it to her !!!

asg,malaytha,
What I meant was that one parent should take complete custody, if the other does not want the child in their life. In many cases I have seen the husband does not want the child but the wife wants to hit back and demands CS,alimony etc. This usually backfires as husband does have certain rights and getting CS has never been free of responsibilities. I really don't know if this was the case with Vijayshree but wanted to make the point that agreeing for joint custody with the only intent of hitting back at the ex is not a good idea.

Originally Posted by flowerlady

Demanding maintenance or alimony makes a man think twice as he will have to pay for spoiling a girls life , its definitely good to teach a lesson to MCPs and make them pay through their nose.

This is the attitude which might lead to trouble. Neither alimony nor maintenance was intended to teach any MCP a lesson. Both come with responsibilities and conditions, which may not be suitable for the woman. They have also caused a general decline in marriage rates in western societies. Since 1970's, US courts don't care if a guy 'spoils' a girls life by marrying and divorcing her or if there was a genuine reason for the couple to split. Its also very unlikely that alimony is awarded for short duration marraiges (few months). So a guy is definitely free to spoil a girls life.