Culture Couple in India sue son for not giving them a grandchild

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-61424869.amp

A couple in the north Indian state of Uttarakhand are suing their only son and his wife for not giving them a grandchild after six years of marriage.

Sanjeev and Sadhana Prasad, 61 and 57, say they used up their savings raising their son, paying for his pilot's training as well as a lavish wedding.
They are demanding compensation worth nearly $650,000 (£525,000) if no grandchild is born within a year.
Their son and his wife do not appear to have commented.

The highly unusual lawsuit was filed on grounds of "mental harassment".
Mr Prasad said he had spent all his savings on his son, sending him to the US in 2006 for pilot training at a cost of $65,000.
He returned to India in 2007, but lost his job and his family had to support him financially for more than two years, the Times of India reports.

Shrey Sagar, 35, did eventually get a job as a pilot. His parents say they arranged his marriage to Shubhangi Sinha, now 31, in 2016, in the hope that they would have a "grandchild to play with" during their retirement.

The parents say they paid for a wedding reception in a five-star hotel, a luxury car worth $80,000 and a honeymoon abroad.
"My son has been married for six years but they are still not planning a baby," Mr Prasad said. "At least if we have a grandchild to spend time with, our pain will become bearable."

The couple's lawyer, AK Srivastava, told The National that the couple had demanded the money "because of mental cruelty".
"It is a dream of every parent to become a grandparent. They had been waiting for years to become grandparents."
The couple's petition, filed in Haridwar, is expected be heard by a court on 17 May.

 

[kcbbq]

Modernity is catching up again with Indian culture and I wonder how it's going to play out.

If it means less streets designated for shitting the world wins.

 

[Fomo Hoire]

Daily Mail has slightly different numbers because they're using different currencies and conversion rates, but they have some more information.

Half the amount they're suing for is considered damages, and half is reimbursement for money they spent on him over the course of his life.

I mistakenly listed the luxury car as the wedding before. No, the wedding gift was 80k,we don't know what the wedding itself cost.

Shrey has since worked as a pilot in India - and lives separately from Shubhangi, who also works.

I was wondering if one of them was infertile. Nope, they aren't even sleeping in the same bed.

'We also had to take a loan to build our house and now we are going through a lot of financial hardships. Mentally too we are quite disturbed because we are living alone.'

I don't quite understand why they're building a home, but it sounds like they're not suing only because they want a grandchild. They're suing because they spent all their savings on their son, forcing them to go into debt to support themselves. The money isn't just a hammer to make the kid comply, they legitimately need it to live and they want either it or a therapy dog baby.

India has a strong joint family system with many generations including grandparents, nephews, aunts and uncles often living in the same household.

It is technically labelled a 'domestic violence' case.

Cultural context

They claim they've spent 25million rupees (£265,000) on their son since he was born.
They now want the exact same amount back - and another 25million in damages.

So of the $650k, $325k are considered damages, $65k for pilot training, $80k for an Audi, and the remaining $180k are somehow divided between the honeymoon, the wedding, 18 years of child rearing, 1 year of pilot school (assuming the 65k was only the education and not the travel/living expenses), and 2 years of NEETery.

 

[RodgerDodger]

Can I be their grandchild? I brown up very well, actually.

Too late! They're broke. What ittle they didn't give the kid they gave the lawyer.

 

[Roast Chicken]

You can influence the outcome but ultimately raising a child who will carry out your ambitions is a gamble. I guess they lost.

 

[Bakarina]

You can influence the outcome but ultimately raising a child who will carry out your ambitions is a gamble. I guess they lost.

Should of had a couple of spares in case the heir didn't work out

 

[Blobby's Murder Knife]

Should of had a couple of spares in case the heir didn't work out

The son probably walked away from the whole only child situation thinking family wasn't that important and if daddy wasted hundreds of thousands on me, do I really want to do the same for my children?

 

[crows in guns]

I hereby order you to fuck your wife case closed.

 

[NoReturn]

Approximate Timeline
Not all events are important, I'm just using them to calculate shit.

Year	Event	Parents' Ages	Son/Wife's Age	Commentary
1961	Dad is born	0
1965	Mom is born	4/0
1986	Son is conceived	25/21		Important for determining when the parents were trying
1987	Son is born	26/22	0
1991	Wife is born	30/26	4/0
2006	Son goes to US to learn to fly a plane	45/41	19/15	Basically his college substitute, w/o student loans. 65k bill but daddy took care of it.
2007	Returned to India	46/42	20/16	Either he only needed 1 year for his college replacement, or he flunked. He gets a job later so I guess he finished training?
"More than 2 years"	NEETs around in India
2016	Arranged Marriage	55/51	29/25	Son is already 4 years older than Dad was when son was conceived. 80k wedding gift. Wedding+Honeymoon were paid for too, but those numbers are not given. This cost more than his college flying license.
2020	nCov-19	59/55	33/29	Not mentioned but come on, he flys planes. He's probably jobless right when wife is approaching her 30's, presumably he's got nothing to do and might even be locked down and they still aren't fucking.
2022, May if article is current	Parents sue for 650k	61/57	35/31	Wife is now officially in her 30s. Son/Wife are 10 years older than Dad/Mom were when they fucked and conceived Son.
2022, August				Conception deadline.
2023, May				Delivery deadline.
2031		70/66	45/41	Dad is expected to die, if Googling India's life expectancy can be trusted. Grandson would be 8 years old.

Parents got like a decade left to live, and all they probably see is a NEET son whose one skill is flying airplanes in an era when governments restrict international travel on the regular. I guess I can see why they're panicking that their family line is ending.

Sucks to be them. IdK how pajeet law works but if there's anything like an appeals system then they're going to die before the lawfare ends.

How many aborted daughters do you guys think they had?

 

[spastic_bag]

Approximate Timeline

See, this is precisely the kind of stellar applied autism I come here for.

 

[Pokemonquistador2]

That old couple really put their eggs into one basket. Ten to one it turns out their son is gay. Also, why can't they simply adopt a grandchild? With all that money they had, they could have easily bribed a few officials to supply them with a more promising heir.

 

[IAmNotAlpharius]

That old couple really put their eggs into one basket. Ten to one it turns out their son is gay. Also, why can't they simply adopt a grandchild? With all that money they had, they could have easily bribed a few officials to supply them with a more promising heir.

The Chinese at least have an excuse of shitty domestic policy. If they wanted to ensure they had grandchildren, they should’ve had more children.

 

[Michael Janke]

shouldn't this have got shot down in a motion to dismiss. why would this case go anywhere?

 

[Coldgrip]

shouldn't this have got shot down in a motion to dismiss. why would this case go anywhere?

Because it's in India.

 

[deepFriedBaka]

shouldn't this have got shot down in a motion to dismiss. why would this case go anywhere?

Frivolous litigation is not a well-established concept in India. You, as this article says, can sue someone for anything.

Hell, an Indian advocate (their word for lawyer) tried to sue a Hindu God, but the lawsuit was thrown out because the judges on the court actually had a brain cell.

 

[Michael Janke]

Frivolous litigation is not a well-established concept in India. You, as this article says, can sue someone for anything.

Hell, an Indian advocate (their word for lawyer) tried to sue a Hindu God, but the lawsuit was thrown out because the judges on the court actually had a brain cell.

in america if you tried to sue someone for the no grandkid thing, it would never work. there's no situation where you can even attempt to make it work.
if you made a deal with your son for grandchildren in exchange for money and it was a contract, you couldn't sue for breach of contract even if they did breach it, by not having kids.

 

[Michael Janke]

i wonder what the weirdest contract that was actually enforced by the court?
like if you paid someone 20,000 to go bowling every saturday for a year with you, would the court make them do it if they refuse. signed contract and everything.

 

[Dog-O-Tron 5000v5.0]

I do wonder why the parents only had one child though. Was it choice or circumstance? I sort of feel for them if it was the latter.

The fact that the son and DIL say nothing probably means it was a lifestyle choice and they have no intention of having children. Can lead a horse to water...

Could also be less the son's fault, maybe she needs to open bobs and show some vagene?

 

[Exigent Circumcisions]

The best way I ever saw an Indian put it was "when the British left, they wanted to hold us back another 100 years, so they left us with their bureaucracy".

Typical self-serving Indian bullshit. They have 6000+ years of stupid traditions holding them back. Colonisation moved them further ahead than they'd ever make it alone.

 

[Spicey McHaggis]

Typical self-serving Indian bullshit. They have 6000+ years of stupid traditions holding them back. Colonisation moved them further ahead than they'd ever make it alone.

Yeah, but have you seen the kind of bureaucracy the British put in their colonies? Now combine Indian bullshit with that bullshit. Match made in hell.

 

[Happy Fish]

Based. I hope the parents win