Dr Ponnappa hasn’t seen his nine-year-old son since he was three, when he received temporary custody for two weeks. A doctor by profession, he had moved to the US with his wife, where he came to understand that she was allegedly having an affair. Things went downhill rapidly from there, with his wife, who was pregnant by this time, wanting to come back to India. When she went into hiding, he filed for divorce. “I was asked to pay `50 lakh on dowry harassment charges, even my parents were roped in. I didn’t know when my son was born, I heard about it three weeks later and flew down to see him.”
The story and variations of it was quite commonplace among the gathering at Town Hall on Saturday. As people the world over celebrate International Father’s Day, the occasion was a sad one for some. The Father’s Day Rally, organised by CRISP, an NGO dedicated to child rights and shared parenting, saw the participation of dozens of fathers who don’t have any hopes of seeing their children.