“Pappa, you know you can ask me for any financial help, right? Why are you stressing yourself so much? I am transferring the amount right away, please just take care of yourself and mummy. This is the least I can do right now as I cannot be there physically to help you both out. Love you always...”, said Kumud, my daughter, while disconnecting the call. 

A daughter is as good as a son, is what I’ve always said, but today when my daughter wants to help me out I am feeling ashamed and guilty for borrowing money from her during these already stressed-out times. 

My name is Harishrai Khatri, a 60-year-old retired citizen, currently trying to get through these highly tough times in Mumbai. I was a banker by profession and took my VRS just 2 years back. I thought I could manage things with my savings and the pension I would receive for the 2 years, but the coronavirus pandemic ruined all of it. 

In February, I had booked a house for Kumud in Navi Mumbai with the help of my savings, something  I wanted to do for her ages ago. I also had an insurance advisor position as a part-timer because staying calm without work was something I couldn’t handle. Also, it would be extra income for the daily expenses. 

But with the down staffing, my job was the first to be axed. Though I thought it wouldn’t be as big a deal, but now 2 months later, I realise that I have to dig into my savings and am under financial pressure for even the daily expenses. Now I think I shouldn’t have invested in that house. There is still a portion of the payment pending that I have to make which is where my savings come in play and with no job, both the house payment and the daily expenses are getting withdrawn from my savings. Even the shares and mutual funds that I had invested in are all in a loss and there is no point in liquidating those...I will be losing more money than earning. I should’ve planned better but how was I to know things would go down the hill all of a sudden? 

Now I cannot get a job anytime soon. For me to even switch to a work-from-home model is very difficult as I am not technically very sound and working around all those apps and downloads and uploads is very frustrating and takes me hours to do even a simple job. Being a banker, I’ve always planned my finances well, but this very time, my calculations have gone wrong. Three days back I had an anxiety attack while trying to put all the calculations and deductions in place. We tried to hide it from Kumud, but she somehow came to know about it. My wife broke down and told her how we had switched to buying her BP medicine from the generic drugs counter from Civil Hospital rather than the prescribed one. I have had a toothache for the past one week and have been trying home remedies to keep it going since I foresee an expense of atleast Rs 1,500-2,000 just going to the dentist and then buying the medicine she writes for me. That is how Kumud got to know about our troubles.

I have had to cut down a lot of my conveniences including groceries--we shifted from packaged tea to loose tea leaves, reduced ghee and butter consumption and other things. We have stopped our newspaper, maid, gardener, and even put out an ad for our car. I had thought about getting the house white washed but that plan too has been put on hold due to lack of funds. Even though my A/C is not working, I am not getting it checked for what if it needs to be replaced? I don’t have ready money for that. 

The last thing I did when fully financially capable was for my daughter, and now  I am pushed to ask her for financial aid. This is really difficult for me as my whole life I have been independent and self-made. I have been hurt by my own self so much that I have no control over what I can do now. Kumud has asked me to sell the other house, but I don’t think that is an option. I will just feel inferior to my worth if I ever choose this option of selling the only house I managed to buy for my daughter. I doubt my self-confidence and I don’t know how to fight this problem. I don’t have the strength of thinking and calculation now. The shame of taking money from a daughter is enough to drown me.

(Pic credit: upklyak/freepik)