01.01. CHAPTER 01 - CHILDHOOD DAYS

CHAPTER 01 - CHILDHOOD DAYS

I really love the name my parents gave me - Krupa. It means "grace". It was prophetic. The story of my life is the story of God’s amazing grace.

Daddy worked in the office of a private company. He earned a moderate salary. But he wasted most of his earnings on drink. He usually came back home late at night every day; and Mummy would accuse him of visiting other women and being unfaithful to her.

Mummy was working as a clerk in a government office. She had a decent salary. But she was always buying new sarees. So we had no savings at all. Mummy would, now and then, bring home ball-pens, envelopes and letter-pads that she had pilfered from her office.

We lived in a two-bedroom house and Daddy’s parents lived with us.

Ours was an unhappy home in many ways. There were constant shoutings and beatings. Mummy bore the brunt of this, but we children got our share too. Often the domestic quarrels would involve Daddy’s mother too - and Mummy was always the loser. But I wondered at times why Mummy screamed so loud that even the neighbours knew what was going on. That used to embarrass me. In order to punish Daddy, Mummy would not leave any of the good food for him or for his parents. She and we children ate up all the special dishes secretly in our bedroom! But I did not like the way Mummy treated Daddy. Sometimes they had such heated arguments late into the night that we could not even sleep properly.

One day, when I was about 12 years old, Mummy took me and my younger brother to see a lady whom she had met at a Christian prayer-meeting. When we met the lady, I was really embarrassed to see Mummy becoming very emotional and telling her all about our hardships at home, even though the lady was a total stranger. But I noticed something kind and soothing about the way that lady reacted to all this information.

I soon realised that Mummy had come to see her because she had wanted to put us both in an orphanage, to save us from the problems we faced with a drunken father. The lady was very kind and patient. She told Mummy that she did not know of any orphanage personally. But she gave Mummy some very good advice. She told Mummy first of all to forgive Daddy for all that he did to her and to have the hope that he would change one day. She also warned Mummy that although we children may be growing up with a difficult father, life in an orphanage would be much worse, for we would then be without even a mother’s love! The lady spoke to me too. She told me to be obedient to my parents, and to respect and honour Daddy even if he had many imperfections. She told me that even Jesus, the Son of God, when He came to earth, had been submissive to His earthly parents, even though He Himself was sinless while His earthly parents were not.

She then prayed with all of us and we went away feeling very much better.

I had many questions as a growing girl. But Mummy was always busy with her office-work and her household duties and never seemed to have any time to talk with me. I also did not feel free to share my problems with her. So I grew up feeling quite lonely and with many unanswered questions. I decided then that if ever I got married and had children, I would spend a lot of time with each of them.

Mummy finally found a Christian hostel for girls in a hill-station, a few hundred miles away from our home. And she put me there.